Riddles
by IcyChicle
Summary: 13th December 2013-World Meeting. England is going to the world meeting. He isn't aware of a rather tall blond figure, watching his struggles from a distance. USUK, SuFin, LietPol, GerIta.
1. Chapter 1

This is my first fanfiction. Never written one before-who would have known that, out of all my obsessions, it would be Hetalia that finally made me write…

Anyway, thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you like it!

Enough babbling…onto the story!

**Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia. It belongs to ****Hidekaz Himaruya.**

There is the occasional swear word in this. And violence towards the end.

-o-

13th December 2013-World Meeting

England sighed, cramming his starched white shirt into a large and battered suitcase. His bed groaned underneath the combined weight of all his clothes-casual and smart, his laptop, several important files and- wait, was that America?

He stopped. He was sure he had seen the telltale blonde mop-although that could have been a range of other countries, Finland, Sweden, Poland-even Canada, but why would anyone want to watch him? He wandered to the window, stretching his back in the process, which emitted several loud clicks. England winced, continuing his journey, looking outside, and expecting America's large blue eyes to greet him. He was surprised. America never hid himself well enough to be completely out of sight of England. He was just _too obvious._

Rolling his eyes and sighing again, England walked back to the bed, greeting his suitcase and struggling to close it. He sat on it, squashing the contents down just enough so that the zip would close around it. Lifting it up was an even more difficult task that trying to pack it properly. A fleeting wish that America _had_ been there (just to help him pick it up) crossed his mind. He dispelled the thought quickly upon the discovery of four wheels on the bottom of the blasted thing.

_Why hadn't he realised they were there before?_

He cursed. In all the years of his owning it, he had never thought to check for wheels. He could have definitely saved time with it, but now he had found them, and at least they would make the job a little easier.

He rolled the suitcase across the carpeted floor, making for his car out in the drive, hauled the damn thing into the boot, tried to close the door, and got hit by it, smacking him upside the face. England lay on the ground, cursing. Why didn't anything ever seem to want to _cooperate_?

He picked himself up, rubbing his sore jaw, tears pricking his eyes a little. He attempted again, this time actually being successful and crowing in delight at the inanimate object.

When he had finished his crowing, he walked to the driver's side of the car, sat on the seat, swung his legs in and put the key in the ignition.

"Bugger."

The car wouldn't start. He climbed out, kicked the tyre violently, and heard an ominous cracking from his foot. He kneeled down on the floor in complete agony and frustration, crying.

_Why did his life hate him_?

He still wasn't aware of a rather tall blonde figure, watching his struggles from a distance.

Picking himself up, he tried again, only with the engine starting this time. Cursing a little more, he drove out of his garden.

-o-

Arriving after four hours of hell on the motorway at Heathrow, he parked his car in a marked bay, locked it and walked off; unaware that another vehicle had been following closely behind him.

The mysterious man climbed out of the car, following England towards and through the airport, pulling up his collar so as not to be seen in detail by anyone else. He boarded the same flight as the small, tousle-haired man and sat 2 or 3 rows behind him, keeping him within his sight and scribbling something on a small notepad, looking up occasionally to observe and take more notes.

England was still blissfully oblivious of the tall man that had been following him for the last few hours. He was currently typing out a long speech, occasionally glancing at the documents he had packed earlier and vaguely thinking that he should have gotten this done a lot earlier and there was no chance he was going to get this finished for the world meeting. Plus, he was meeting America and Canada tonight to go to the pub (England had instructed Canada not to let him have more than 2 beers, America was bound to forget or something) so there was no chance that he could work into the night.

_They can wait, _he thought, snapping the laptop closed. Maybe he could make it up as he went along on his speech.

An airhostess walked up the aisles, offering each passenger peanuts and snacks. England looked out the window, occupying himself a little. If he was bored enough to look at clouds, why wasn't he working on his speech?

"Anything to eat, sir?"

"No thank you." He shook his head a little and smiled as she walked to the passengers seated behind him. He craned around in his seat, watching her serve other passengers. He never noticed a man in a dark trench coat quickly lean towards the window, behind another chair so the man he was following would not see him.

England turned around and looked out at the darkening sky and slowly fell asleep.

-o-

7 hours later, he had unpacked and was waiting outside the pub for What's-his-name and America. His watcher was waiting nearby, surveying, listening.

Two other men came along, greeting England and walking into the pub, taking a table and ordering food and beer. England, as he had promised himself earlier-reminded Canada not to let him have more than 2 pints.

"So, England, America, how have you been?"

The question was barely acknowledged by the two other countries, so Canada repeated himself, a little louder.

"_How have you been?"_

"Oh," England jumped, "Er, fine. Sorry," He hastily replied, "How have you been? Had any trouble recently?"

"Eh…good, thank you. And no, nothing much-"

"I'm good," bellowed America over Canada, "you know what? Why doesn't this place sell burgers, I'm star-"

"I ASKED CANADA."

"Oh."

"Honestly, I didn't bring you up to be like this. You should be ashamed."

Canada hung his head. He knew he wasn't going to get a word in edgeways, whoever was speaking, so he stood up, still unnoticed by the other two and walked to get some peanuts from the bar.

"A pack of peanuts, please?"

Still no-one listening. The bartender continued his chat with a pretty woman a couple of metres away.

Canada was sick of this crap.

"_Listen to me, Damnit_!"

The bartender turned his head.

"No need to be rude, son, I'm coming. What do you want?"

"A pack of peanuts, please."

"Alright."

A bright red bag came soaring his way, which was caught quickly and clumsily by the blonde. He put a few coins on the counter and made his way back to the table America and England were sat at.

"I'm going outside for some fresh air."

No reply. Just more arguing.

_No surprise there then._

He slouched outside, selecting the cleanest table he could see in the darkness and yanked open the bag, selecting a couple of nuts and putting them in his mouth. It seemed terribly quiet.

_Now was their chance_.

3 men soared almost out of nowhere; grabbing Canada from behind and flooring him in one go. He tried to scream desperately, but one of the mysterious men gagged him with a cloth, silencing him.

His arms were yanked behind his back and tied together with strong rope, left to lie on his back, his elbows bending at a strange angle and hands furiously scrabbling at the binding.

The struggle was over quickly. All Canada saw was a rather large, shiny, metal rod come soaring down to meet his head, before the world span away from him in a haze of extreme fright and pain.

-o-

So? How was it? Should I continue at all? Please review…Please *puppy eyes*

Dear Lord, those last two paragraphs, fffffff- And, I did start with England for a reason.

Anyway…review!


	2. Chapter 2

First of all, let me thank the two people who added me to their story alerts-it means so much to me to know that someone likes my story enough to put it on their story watch and display that they want it to continue. It persuaded me enough to write more XD. Also, thank you to my friends for being interested in my fiction XD. It puts spirit in mah writing ^_^.

Secondly, long chapter today. I planned badly, so I had to mesh two chapters.

On we go!

**Hetalia does not belong to me. It belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya.**

More swearing and violence. And stereotypes and Romano's potty-mouth, but that can be expected from Hetalia XD.

* * *

><p>"You're not my mother, old man, stop obsessing over how I act!"<p>

"No, America, I'm not your mother, but I used to act in loco parentis of you. I am practically a father figure. It is my duty to worry. If you act like some sort of…hooligan, then it will be extremely humiliating for me,"

"Dude, you're not anymore-"

"BASTARD!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Shut up, shut up…you only wanted rid of me, didn't you, you only~" England threw himself at America's chest, beating it, hands balled up and tears starting to seep from his eyes, America looked down on the blonde man and put his arms round his waist.

"Shhhh…" England's crying lessened, but his body still quivered in his arms. "Cheer up, and, er, what time is it?"

England sniffled before looking down at the watch on his left wrist.

"10:30."

"Crap, really?"

"Mm hm."

"We've been arguing for a long time."

"Mmm…"

"We should go."

"Mmm"…

"Say, have you seen Canada recently? If we're gonna go back to the hotel then we should at least bring Canada with us."

"That's a good point, America." England wiped the tears off his face, "Did he speak to you?"

"I think he said something about going outside."

They looked towards the door and both moved to it at the same time.

"Canada?"

America opened the door of the pub, expecting his twin to be sitting there, or maybe standing, but all he saw were peanuts scattered across the floor.

"England? Did Canada get anything to eat before he went outside?"

"I think he said something about getting some peanuts.

The ground seemed to rotate 180 degrees on its side,

"Hell, are you okay?"

"NO!" The tears began to spill out of the powerful nation's eyes, "Canada…"

"Shit…"

Something glittered on the ground in the light seeping through the window of the pub. England bent down, telling America not to panic and everything would be okay. It was blood.

"Fuck…" He swore under his breath, this couldn't be true. "America, I have to say something." Putting his index finger in the liquid and bringing it up to the younger nation's gaze, "I don't want to frighten you, but it would be best I said all in these circumstances…It's blood."

"No. No it isn't." America drew back along the ground, receding along the filthy floor back towards the door, "You lie."

"Let's get you home." Trying to pick up the American man was no easy task when he was upset. Grabbing him under the armpits, he hauled with all his might, "How about we look for him?"

"Are you crazy? He's been kidnapped!"

"He could have just gotten into a bar fight."

With this, America finally picked himself up onto shaking legs and started to walk, stumbling occasionally from the shock.

"Let's…look…then…"

England grabbed his hand to stop him from falling over, and so they looked.

-o-

At 1:00, the two had still not found Canada. America was close to tears, and England had a slightly sick feeling in his gut.

"I think…I think we should turn in…"

"No! He'll be here somewhere…CANADA?"

"Stop it. You're hurting yourself and people will think you're crazy for yelling out a country's name at the top of your lungs."

"I don't care."

"You're tired. We're going home."

Grasping America firmly by the hand, England began to walk steadily towards the hotel at the other end of town. The streets seemed eerily quiet for this time of night, wouldn't most people be clubbing?

It hit him.

"America. We need to find a crowd NOW."

"What?"

"Just do it. Run. RUN!"

He obeyed almost instantly, throwing his legs out to sprint to the end of the street, but a cry stopped him. Time seemed to slow down as he looked back.

No. Not England too…

His former guardian was in the iron-grip of three men, trying to fight them off. America could only watch as they wrestled him to the ground.

_Now was his time to act._

He screamed as loud as he could, charging towards the attackers, and furiously hitting, kicking, biting, whatever he could do to save his friend, but the attack seemed unfruitful. England was already unconscious from a chloroform-soaked handkerchief and was being stuffed into the back of a black car at the edge of the road. America yelled and threw himself at the car door. Why was nobody coming? He had made enough of a racket now.

The three men turned on him, their dark eyes glinting dangerously, throwing themselves onto the American. He swayed and shook and bucked to get them off his back, nobody had ever have been known to match America's power in person, but three men…he was going to lose.

_He could run away if he wanted to._

"No! I'll never leave my friends!" The thought was so overpowering that he had to say it out loud to prevent himself from running.

They had him on the floor by now. One was sitting on his shoulders, one holding down his legs. One had a sickly-sweet handkerchief held to his nose and mouth.

A tear escaped his eye before he resolved to blackness.

-o-

14th December 2013- 2:30pm

"Where _are_ they?" Germany paced up and down the meeting room, "They should have been here half an hour ago."

"Maybe they got so pissed they passed out in a gutter somewhere," The coarse Italian piped up, "And have either been killed in a drunken fight or not woken up yet."

"No, Canada wouldn't do that, he was never much of a drinker."

"But he was with _England _and_ America. _They're a bad enough influence on him."

Germany sighed. "Romano, shut up. This isn't helping."

Silence. A door banged shut somewhere. A cricket chirped.

"Has anyone thought to phone them?"

More silence.

"Does anyone even have their phone numbers?"

Nothing.

"Talk to me."

France raised his hand, "I have _Angleterre_'s phone number." He paused, "_Mais_, he doesn't know I have it."

"Pass it over here, then." Germany took the white, red and blue striped mobile phone and scrolled through the contacts. "Who's-Oh, never mind, I'd rather not hear it…" France grinned, "Ah! Here we are!" He picked up his own phone and punched the number into it. And upon finishing, held it to his ear and waited.

"_You have reached the phone of Arthur Kirkland, unfortunately, I cannot currently take your call, please leave a messa-_"

"Damn." Germany snapped the phone shut, "Well, er, anyone got any ideas?"

"Why the hell did he use his human name?"

"Shut it, Romano."

"Damn potato eater."

Germany glared daggers at the foul-mouthed Italian before melting into silence.

Somebody's stomach rumbled.

"Who's hungry? I have pasta with me!" Ever cheerful north Italy reached into his suitcase and brought out several packs of spaghetti. "I have spaghetti and delicious tomato sauces to go with it, direct from Italia! Plus I have pizza, fruit and vintage wine!"

"Italy, I don't think this is a great time to be eating, delicious as your food might be."

France reached out, "I'm interested in the wine, Italy."

Italy passed the red bottle to the Frenchman who uncorked it with his hands and drunk. They waited.

"I've had enough of this." Switzerland stood up and slammed his hands on the table, "We'll just have to get on with the conference and wait 'till they turn up."

"I agree."

The meeting started, but was difficult to continue without the three missing countries.

"It's useless. It's like trying to read a script without three actors. Plus, I think worry isn't helping."

"I'm not worried-" Began Prussia, but he was interrupted by his brother,

"You say that. I think we're all worried really. It's always a bit disconcerting when some of your company don't turn up. Besides, what are you doing here?"

"It's called gatecrashing."

"Okay."

Japan spoke up, "I think we should go back to our hotels and stay in contact with each other in case one of us sees one of them."

"And what do we do in the mean-time?" said Ukraine.

"We should see more of this city. It's not every day you get to go to New York."

A sudden sound rent the tense air. Static noise poured from the phone with the speakers in the middle of the large table and it steadily adjusted to sound like a voice, albeit a strange one-distorted, high and fuzzy.

"Y-y-zzz…"

The nations looked at each other, confused, unsure whether to run or to listen or prompt speech from the mysterious speaker.

"I- I am-" More static, "I am here to tell you- that…your precious- won't be returning…anytime…" The speaker went fuzzy again before getting clearer, "Soon."

"What's that, like, supposed to mean?" Poland voiced the thoughts of most of the other nations.

"It means-they will-return another day. The date will not-be told. You-can decide whether-or not- you-see them again…"

There was silence, not a nation in the room not hanging onto his every word.

"You…you-be warned- we will send more messages-sages…and one-will be taken."

"On' wh't?"

"Your-precious-precious-"

The voice cut out and there was static, which continued for a while before cutting out completely. There was more silence, even deeper and tenser than that before the mysterious message.

"What a load of rubbish!" jeered Denmark, "What the fuck was _that _crazy guy going on about?"

"I think he was trying to tell us something," Replied Russia, "Even if it was difficult to understand."

A sob leapt through the air and everyone turned to see Italy grab hold of Germany and hold on like to dear life. Germany stood stock still, his expression not changing, mouth set in a downward curve and eyebrows frowning.

"Th'at's _my _j'b."

"What is?"

"N'verm'ind."

"I think," yelled China over the racket Italy was making, "that we should ignore this. Prank call, nothing more."

Murmurs of agreement shot round the room and groups that had formed during the message when everybody was stood up started to relax.

"What we'll do about America, England and Canada though, I don't know."

"We should do what Japan suggested earlier." Said Switzerland, "We'll meet up again in a week."

And with that, the nations dispersed.

* * *

><p>Ahhh…not that great a chapter now I look over it, but still…next one'll be up soon, depending on how quickly I get my act together XD.<p>

**REMEMBER TO REVIEW!one!shift-eleven!1**

**P.S. **It gets better, I swear. It's not all kidnappings.


	3. Chapter 3

Hello again ^_^. Well, I don't feel I have to say anything right now other than enjoy the story! If I think of anything important to say, I'll put it at the end ^_^.

Again, enjoy this chapter!

**Hetalia does not belong to me. It belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya.**

Yes, you guessed it-foul language and violence X3. Also-much ItalyxGermany fluff in this chapter, yay!

* * *

><p>Germany walked from the meeting room, hearing his footsteps sound softly on the carpet. He had stayed behind after all the other nations, pondering the current state of the countries-specifically the three that had not turned up and the dismissive attitude China had to the mysterious message. It couldn't just be a prank call, could it? Who would have given the caller the meeting room's number?<p>

He was interrupted from his thoughts by quick footsteps behind him, being stifled terribly. Time seemed to stand still for a moment, while he registered the sound until he realised it could mean danger, and then without looking back, he bolted. His breath ripped out in rags, arms pumping wildly, weaving through corridors trying to shake off his pursuer.

"Germany!"

"Italy! Where are you?" He continued to run.

"Germany, stupid, I'm right behind you!"

"What?" He stopped quickly and looked behind himself to be greeted by a puffing Italy.

"Why did you run away from me?" Italy looked very upset.

"I thought you were…never mind."

He watched Italy stop and bend over, his hands on his knees, puffing.

"You should have really tried more during training."

"Heh…" Italy sat down on the red-carpeted floor and panted some more, "I was still pretty good to keep up with lightning-bolt-Germany, am I right?" He laughed, high and merry. He got only a grunt in reply. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." He reached out a hand to the little brunet, who took it gladly, smiled, and pulled himself up.

"Pheuh! I thought you decided you didn't like me any more then!" He hugged the taller nation, who also put his arms round the other's shoulders.

The hug broke, and Germany decided to voice an idea to Italy. "Well, I was thinking," He began, "Seeing as we're all staying in New York, and I have no-one to look at the city with, or talk to apart from Prussia, maybe you'd like to stay with me?" The last part was said in a rush and it was only after it had left Germany's mouth did he fully realise what he said. A light blush fell onto his cheeks.

"Germany, I'd _love_ to!" Italy's reply was ecstatic, "All I had to stay with was Romano, and he's going to be out with Spain all week."

"Your brother agreed to hang out with Spain?"

"Well…not exactly…_Spain_ agreed to hang out with him. Romano didn't though…" He trailed off, "It's not important. I'm just glad I'll have _you_!"

Germany looked away now, blushing furiously, "I'm glad you think that."

"Good!"

"Let's go back to the hotel."

They began to stroll down the red-carpeted corridor, following the signs to reach the front door. They weren't aware of a man, peeping out from behind a wall occasionally, watching their every move.

-o-

15th December 2013-7:30am

Knock knock

Italy prised his bleary eyes open at the intrusive noise. He most definitely wasn't used to waking up at this time, let alone dragging himself out of his comfortable bed and answering the door to a mysterious stranger. Who might be knocking at his door so early?

Yawning, he picked himself up and shuffled to the door in bare feet, throwing on his fluffy dressing gown in the process. Still half-asleep, he yanked open the door to be greeted with an intimidating Germany, who was already dressed and had a frown plastered on his face.

"Heya, Germany." Italy mumbled, yawning, "Oh, excuse me!" He quickly covered his mouth but continued to yawn, "I've just woken up."

"Oh, I'm sorry, did I disturb you?"

"No, no, it's okay. Come in, I'll get dressed if you just let me get changed in the bathroom." He beckoned for Germany to come in. He followed, watched Italy bring clothes to the bathroom and waited outside.

"So, where shall we go?" Italy yelled through the door, "We could pick up a guide book and have a wander around?"

"Ja, that sounds good."

Germany listened to the sounds of Italy jumping around and watched a robin land on the windowsill of the room. A loud thump suddenly emerged from the bathroom and with it came a deafening yell.

"Germany!"

"_Italy_! What's wrong?"

"I fell over!"

"Oh, is that all? Oh-w-wait…"

"I'm stuck! Help me!"

Germany sighed, "What?" He stood back, "You want me to help you? How?"

"I'm stuck!"

"I know you're stuck…" He sighed, resolving to the matter, "Just wait, I'll come in and help you. You _are_ decent, right?"

"Yes. My shirt's stuck over my head and I fell into the bath." Tears seemed to choke the voice a little, "The door's unlocked."

The large German tentatively opened the white door and looked around. It was a clean blue and white bathroom with sparkling taps and turquoise shower curtain. In the bath was Italy, stuck in the most peculiar position imaginable. His shirt was stuck over his head and between his arms, which had somehow gotten entangled in the long legs that were dangling over the side at an extremely odd angle.

"Meine fresse! Italy, how did you manage to end up like this?"

"I don't know!" The little voice of the poor Italian was muffled by the shirt and tripped up by tears, "Help me, please."

The next thing he knew, he was being lifted out of the tub by strong arms and being set down on the tiled floor.

"I can't use my hands, they're still trapped."

"Honestly, do I have to do everything for you?" The cloth was pulled over his head and over his arms. The man was finally free.

"Ah, thank you Germany." The larger man was pulled into the second hug from the Italian in 24 hours. "Now I know who to ask if I'm in trouble!"

"Ja, ja. Are you ready?"

"I am now!"

"Sehr gut. Let's go."

Italy grabbed his green satchel off the floor and slung it over his shoulder, picking up the keys and locking the door of the room on the way. Germany walked along with him and pulled him off the stairs when he was about to fall down them. They finally got outside and looked around them, savouring every minute detail, the snow that glittered in the trees stripped of their leaves, the sparkling breath of each pedestrian hurrying to get to their destination, the taxis that waded through the grey sludge across the road.

Germany started; "If we weren't so distracted with work and meetings, we could see more of this."

Italy nodded his head in agreement, quite awestruck by the scene laid out in front of them. "Where-where shall we go?"

"I'm not sure. There's a park over there, why don't we have a wander round that?"

"Sounds buona."

The grass in the park sparkled a brilliant white as the pair walked around it. The lake was even better. It seemed as if someone had put polished glass in a large depression in the ground, ducks waddled about merrily on the surface, occasionally tapping inquisitively at the surface, puzzled at where the water had gone. Many people had brought dogs and were walking them round, and if one went up to Germany, he knelt down and patted it, muttering in German and smiled at the owner when they came to take them along with their walk.

Italy shivered, "I'm cold."

Germany responded by pulling the little man into a hug, into the warm folds of his jacket and sitting down on a bench, looking across the wintery scene.

"You know," He began, "I used to come to the park with my older brother and father when I was very young. We brought the dogs and pretended we were just like any other human." He looked down at Italy, who was hanging on his every word, "Of course, my father's gone now. He was a great man."

Italy tightened his grip around Germany's waist, "My grandfather did that with us too. Only, we didn't bring dogs. We just ran around. He'd let us play fight together, he loved to join in as well. It was sad…he just got more tired as the months went by. He didn't play as much. And one day, he was just…gone." A tear slipped down his face, "I was so young, I never really knew him." A little sob was emitted from his mouth and he let himself be pulled into a tight embrace from Germany.

"Ssh…" he rubbed Italy's back while it heaved from gut-wrenching wails, "Ssh…it's okay."

It took a while fro Italy's sobs to die down, and he emerged with red eyes and nose. He chuckled, "I bet I look like a clown, don't I?"

"Not at all."

"My ears are cold, though." He stopped, "I just remembered, I have earmuffs back in the hotel, two pairs, the most beautiful you've ever seen! All green and white and red, like the Italian flag! I brought one for me and Romano, but you don't mind, do you?"

"Nein, why?"

"Just wait here, I'll go and get them. I'll be back in 15 minutes!" He ran off towards the end of the park, where he bolted along the icy pavement to the hotel.

Half an hour later

"Italyyy…" Germany tapped his right foot impatiently, looking at his watch. He had said 15 minutes, right? Why was he taking so much longer?

He stood up and paced around the bench compulsively, not noticing the strange looks he was getting from other people. When a dog trotted up to him, he just waved is hand and said "Shoo." earning him a nasty look from the dog's owner. It was now that he decided he should look for the nation. He walked briskly to the end of the park, leaving footsteps in the already compacted snow and striding out of the gate. He walked along the same icy street that he had seen Italy skip along half an hour earlier and started to speed up.

Now he could see the hotel at the end of the road. He was practically jogging towards it, and…he saw something out of the corner of his eye.

He stopped. Stock still. He took a few paces back wards and had a proper look. It was an alleyway, a dark one. There were drink bottles and used syringes lining the edges, and there, a little way down, he saw a flash of colour.

Making slightly disgusted noises, he walked down the backstreet, carefully avoiding the litter and occasional puddles of vomit he encountered until he reached what he was looking for.

What he saw chilled him to the bone and shocked him beyond measure.

There, in the middle of the alley, were two earmuffs, both red, green and white.

Surrounding them was a scattering of powdery snow, as if there had been a struggle.

He was shaking badly, but he didn't notice it, and tears were falling from his eyes, fast and furious like a gushing torrent of water.

_No. Italy hasn't gone. He can't be gone._

He bent down and saw his shaking hands reach out to grab the headgear, but they stopped just short of them. He stood up, looking around frantically like a deer caught in headlights.

"Italy?"

There was no answer. This had to be some sort of cruel joke.

"_Italy_?"

Still nothing.

"_ITALY_?"

He straightened up and bolted from the backstreet as fast as he could go. He spotted a person and hung onto him.

"Help me! Help me!"

The walker just shook him off with a revolted look and continued to walk off.

"Have you seen my friend?"

He asked every person he came across desperately, but no-one answered. No-one even gave him a second glance. He weaved in and out of the crowd, looking for the little brunet.

"He has brown hair with a little curl."

No-one acknowledged him.

"He was carrying two green, white and red earmuffs."

He looked over his shoulder, and saw the hotel. He dashed to the door and bolted up the stairs, looking for his friend's room.

He tentatively knocked on the door, "Italy?"

No answer. He tried the handle, the door swung open. Nothing had changed.

Running to his own room, he fumbled clumsily with the silver key and opened the door. He plucked the phone up and dialled the first number he thought of.

"Prussia?"

"Ja?"

"Italy's gone."

-o-

Germany stood up. "I think you all know why you've been called?"

There was a collective nod.

"Italy has gone. I don't know what happened, he just left me for a minute and he was gone, just like that." He paused. "Does anyone think that this has something to do with England, Canada and America?"

"Oui. Maybe it's something to do with that message as well."

"Ja, I'm thinking so."

The room went silent for a few seconds.

"I think we should all stick together."

There was an explosion of noise. Nations hung onto each other and discussed what had happened and the idea they had been presented with.

"Shut up!" there was a gunshot. Everyone looked round to see Switzerland, gun in the air and a mortified Liechtenstein sitting by his side. "Talking will get us nowhere."

"I agree."

Romano stood up, "My brother's been taken. We will damn look for the people who dared mess with my family." Pride and anger burned in the deep brown eyes and the curl almost identical to Italy's looked even wilder and more unruly than before.

"No." Japan started, "It's too early. We don't know anything about these people or why they're taking our friends."

"So, what do we do in the meantime-aru?" China stood up as well.

"We stick together. Safety in numbers. We watch each other's backs."

"How do we do that?"

"Well, we're all together now, are we not?"

* * *

><p>Phew! Another chapter finished! That part when Italy was talking about his grandfather almost made me cry ;_;.<p>

Anyway, it turns out I do have something important to say!

1)There is update info in my profile.

2) I am doing illustrations for chapter 1. It will be posted on my deviantART within the next few days. A link to my dA is in my profile also.

Well, I hope you enjoyed it! ^_^.

Oh, and I forgot, thank you so much to those that read it and put my story on their story watch again!


	4. Chapter 4

Hej, mein petit amigos! [/madness] (madness? THIS IS SPARTA! *shotshotshot*), I shall shut up now because I have something to say about this chapter-it takes place around the beginning of chapter 3 and moves to catch up with where the story was at the end of chapter 3. Well…enjoy! ^_^.

Oh, and another thing- my illustration has been finished now. It's up (I think).

**Hetalia does not belong to me. It belongs to** **Hidekaz Himaruya.**

Moar violence and swearing and personified countries-huzzah!

* * *

><p>All England was aware of was an inky black darkness, surrounding him. Nothing else existed to him at that point, and he didn't know of anything else. He was just a being floating in pure blackness. A being must be better than nothing.<p>

A bright light appeared out of the corner of his eye, and curious, he turned his head to look at it. It vanished and reappeared at the other side. He floated there, turning his head from side to side, chasing it around a little, and it wasn't long before he realised that it was slowly getting bigger and bigger.

"What the…?" he said to himself. The light was getting larger more quickly and brighter, to a point where it was almost blinding for the man, and it enveloped him before he could string together any coherent words either to himself or out loud.

He gasped and opened his eyes, squinting at the bright light shining in his face. He was in a room that was completely devoid of furniture-a stone floor that was painted white and walls that were the same colour as the floor. A bulb bright enough to blind if one looked into it for too long was attached to the ceiling and light bounced off the walls and floor.

It was now that he realised that he had a tremendous headache, and he moaned a little from the pain throbbing violently against his temple.

A small voice seemed to come at him from the corner of the room; "It's okay. The headache subsides after a bit.".

England looked round in surprise; he could have sworn nobody had been there before, but he sighed in immense relief when he saw Canada in his white and red hoodie, drooping against a wall, his head hung low.

The second thing that seemed to register was that the Canadian was covered in an outstanding amount of blood and his words were slurred badly.

"Hell," Begun England forgetting his pain and shuffling towards him, "What happened to you?"

"I-I don't…remember…I was outside that pub place and three men just attacked me…" He paused and raised his head slightly, "Then I woke up here. I've been awake for a few hours now."

"What, they hit you?"

Canada nodded, "I think so."

England sat there, speechless. How could anyone in their right minds hit someone so violently that they lost consciousness? Well…they obviously weren't in their right minds.

"Do you have any idea why we're here, where we are or what we're doing?"

"No." Canada sounded mournful, "I don't even know if we're going to get out _alive_."

"Don't worry." England swallowed a sick feeling creeping up from his stomach, "I doubt they'll try to kill us if they haven't already. Why would they make it more difficult for themselves?"

A low moan came from the other side of the room, and he spotted America crumpled in a corner trying to shift himself up against the wall but failing horribly and resolving to lay on the floor.

"America?"

He didn't respond, but let loose a groan of pain and acknowledging that he had heard him.

"Mmm…?"

"You okay?"

"Well…apart from a massive headache and having no idea what I'm doing here, pretty good."

England stayed with Canada, but still talked to America, "The headache passes after a bit. Just close your eyes."

He turned to Canada, "We should get that wound cleared up." And took off his sweater and started to dab at the wound on Canada's head, even though it had stopped bleeding a long time ago and was stuck, caked to his forehead. America managed to scoot over to the two as well and sat against the wall, bringing his knees up to his chest.

"Any idea-"

"No. I already asked Canada that."

"Canada's here?" He looked, surprised at his brother's face and then his mouth broke into a broad smile, "Brother…I was worried!"

"Hm? Really? You see, last time I tried to talk to you, you didn't even seem to care that I was there."

America looked at him in silence before looking at England, who shrugged.

"Erm…England? Has your headache gone yet?"

"Nearly. And yours?"

"The same."

They both looked at Canada who lifted his head unwillingly to look them in the eyes. He tried to break the tension by starting; "What about Kumakara?"

"I thought you named him Kumajiro?"

"I did?"

"Never mind."

They sat in silence for a while, before America said, "Do you think anyone else was taken?"

Canada and England shrugged and went back to staring at the ground, not seeming to care what happened to them. America stood up and began to pace around the room, muttering something unintelligible and knocking on the walls.

"What _are_ you doing?"

"There has to be some way out of here." He continued to slide along the walls for what seemed like hours, before finally descending down beside the other two.

"It's hopeless. I can't find anything. This place is _just_ a room. The door over there is locked and I can't see underneath or through the keyhole." He buried his head in his arms, "What a way to die."

"We're not going to die, America." England patted his former colony's shoulder affectionately, "I think we should go to sleep and see what happens in the morning."

Canada obeyed instantly and curled up on the ground, falling asleep quickly. England went to the middle of the room and stretched out there, not giving any indication whether or not he was asleep.

America wasn't so lucky. It was only what seemed like hours later when he finally drifted into a fitful sleep, nightmares plaguing him.

When they woke, they found three plates of meat and bread and three large glasses of water by the door America had discovered. They ate willingly and drank what was there and fell against the wall.

"What time is it, do you think?" asked America, checking his wrist but remembering that he rarely wore watches.

England brought his wrist up and squinted at it. It was about 11 o' clock in the morning.

"It's about 11."

"Hng…"

England looked over at Canada, his head on his chest and knees drawn up, in a state of pure helplessness and exhaustion, and America was in a similar position.

They sat there in silence for minutes, listening to the light above their heads buzz slightly and watched the walls, following them up to the ceiling and back down again.

Their stupors were suddenly interrupted by a loud bang and saw the door fly open and several men trail in, with a little man slung over the shoulder of the biggest, burliest man. He put the man down on the concrete and stood up, groaning and holding his back, mouth contorting into a slightly pained frown and lines on his forehead squishing together and becoming more pronounced.

It was now that they could finally get a good look at their captors. They were all wearing black, black trenchcoats, dark sunglasses and long heavy boots. Most of them were in their 20's, had dark hair and wore sunglasses. They were extremely pale and several had very chiselled-looking jaw lines. There were five men in total and they all looked at the three men hunched up against the wall at the far end of the room.

"Heh. Didn't expect to see you two awake." He motioned to England and America, "Well…whatever."

"What do you want with us?" England stood up defiantly and swung his hand through the air, his watch catching the light and glinting brightly. Canada and America shuffled over to the unconscious little man, who turned out to be Italy, and dragged him back away from the men, who had been standing dangerously close to his head.

The man who had spoken merely looked down pensively, watching Italy being taken away, before he finally spoke.

"I can't say." He turned his head to look at the men behind him, who shook their heads profusely and glared.

"That doesn't tell us much at all." England's tone was defiant.

"Sorry." The one who had previously spoken paused, "We've got to go now." They began to walk out of the room, leaving the trio as clueless as before.

"They're not going to kill us." England spoke, "They would have definitely killed us in our sleep if they did want to."

"That's not a complete comfort." America said worriedly, before being interrupted by the one he had responded to.

"Didn't you see how carefully they were carrying Italy? They need us for something. Something important. Something that we can't do without being seriously injured."

"Eh…guys…" Canada reminded them, "They hit me…on the head…with a crowbar."

"Ah…good point…well then…they _obviously_ want to kill us."

"No…" The North American twins winced, "Don't say that."

"I was being sarcastic."

There was an uneasy calm, rent with tension and the little hums emitted by the light over their heads reverberated off the walls eerily.

They sat there for hours, not seeming to know what to do, occasionally breaking the silence with a question to the other two listeners, but none were ever replied. They were all deep in thought when a whimper came from the little Italian nation lying on the floor beside them.

"Germany-?" He started uncertainly. It was heartbreaking, really, to see a little hope in a soul that would be destroyed when he realised where he was. "_Germany_-?" His voice cracked pathetically before breaking down into sobs.

"Germany's…not here." America said, breaking the news to him gently, "But we are."

"Who's that?" Italy asked, still lying on his back, "Where are you?"

"Well…sit up. It's America. You remember me, right? And England and Canada?"

Italy sat up, wiping his eyes with his shirt sleeve and looking around, spotting them quickly.

"Where am I?"

"We don't know." England spoke up, shuffling over and putting an arm round the quivering man, "We know that they're not going to hurt us, though."

"I have a headache."

"Don't worry, it passes after a while."

Italy sucked in through his teeth and scrunched his face up before letting it relax and he leaned back against the wall between America and Canada.

"How long are we going to be here?"

* * *

><p>There was noise, a lot of it, at the world meeting. Countries were shouting, crying, clinging onto each other, having tussles with other nations, there was chaos. Even Greece was wide awake and arguing fiercely with Turkey over Japan. Switzerland had already tried to shut them up by firing his signature rifle into the air several times, bringing down large amounts of plaster and dust, but to no avail. Germany was yelling as loud as he could, slamming his hands on the table when Prussia fell into him and onto the floor, grinning up at him with scarlet eyes. Denmark had thought that this was a good time to cause trouble and had taken a running jump at the long table, sliding along it and laughing manically as Romano tried to grab him by the ankle, the table's legs breaking at one end, forcing everything to slide off and collect in a big heap at the bottom. Several people rugby-tackled the wild-haired man and Sweden took his axe and held it above his throat menacingly, threatening to decapitate him.<p>

Finland had somehow gotten stuck in the chandelier and was yelling "Perkele! Perkele!" and Iceland was hanging from it by the tips of his fingers, his puffin squawking madly on his shoulder.

Russia had built a fort from chairs in the corner of the room, yelling violently in Russian and screaming "Kol" every fourth word, swinging his tap pipe around and holding his sisters in his arms. Belarus started to claw at his coat, and was thrown to the other side of the room, landing with a bump and hissing like an enraged cat.

Only Liechtenstein seemed to remain sane, having kept her chair and sitting with her hands in her lap, lips pursed so tightly they almost couldn't be seen.

She was the one who finally stopped the ruckus by yelling uncharacteristically loud, shocking most nations into a temporary silence.

"_Shut up_!" her eyes were glittering dangerously and her face was an impressive shade of purple, "You're worse than Prussia, France and Spain combined!"

The trio mentioned stopped fighting and looked on, offended.

"Hell, this is an international emergency, and you think it's _funny_ to _fight_?" she drew in breath quickly, "You make me sick!"

She sat down quickly.

"Liechtenstein, are you alright?" Switzerland asked her, "Maybe you should go home…"

"No, I'm fine." She replied, her voice sweet as it was normally before the tirade. "I don't like arguments."

"We can bloody see that!" Denmark yelled, laughing before Sweden lowered the axe a little, so it pressed against his neck, shutting him up.

"We need to talk together." Germany started, pensively, "It's obvious we can't all get along with each other. I vote we split off into groups of two or three."

Several hands raised in support of the vote

"Right." Germany walked to retrieve the notepad that had slid off the table when the legs had given out earlier.

"Who wants to go with who?"

And that was when the madness began.

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><p>Ahhh…another chapter finished ^_^. I realised that I love the words "squished", "quivering" and "manically" while writing. I might use them more!<p>

I thought up the Denmark and Russia idea halfway though school, and I started laughing like a madwoman for the rest of the day . Oh, yes, I did get some strange looks ^_^;; My maths teacher thinks I'm a nutburger. You have no idea the mental images I got from that. I HOPE YOU'RE ALL HAPPY.

Happy (late) Easter, everyone!


	5. Chapter 5

Hallo! It's just now that I've realised that the author's notes are just getting longer, so I'll just start right away ^_^.

**Hetalia does not belong to me. It belongs to** **Hidekaz Himaruya.**

Violence, bad mouthed-ness and personified countries.

* * *

><p>"Urgh…" England's eyelids fluttered open reluctantly to another room, similar to the one he had been placed in a few days ago. Or was it a few hours? He shook his head, still crumpled against the wall and looked around. All he remembered was falling asleep again with the other three and waking up here.<p>

It was a different room, although the differences were subtle and minute. He had a metal bracelet on his right wrist, there was a red number painted on the door- a number 2. He was lying on a platform, raised above the ground by about half a metre, the edges the same colour as all the walls, floor and ceiling- a bright white. A security camera was mounted on a wall in the corner of the room, watching his every move.

With shaking legs, he lowered himself off the platform and onto the ground, buckling a little when his feet came into contact with solid concrete.

He flung out his arms onto the platform to steady his body and took a proper look at the mysterious room. It was smaller than the last one- approximately 5 metres by 5, and he appeared to be the only one there.

"America?" He called out uncertainly, "America~?"

There was no reply from the loud-mouthed American. He should have known. Was he really stupid enough to call out to thin air?

He discovered now that he was able to more or less stand up without support of the platform, so he released his hands and straightened up, planting his feet firmly on the hard surface. His feet felt different to him. Looking down warily, he spotted that his shoes had been changed to a bright yellow pair of trainers with thick padding on the soles. The same had happened to the rest of his clothes, they were all a bright canary yellow, reflecting the light so well it hurt his eyes. He snorted in disgust. What an awful colour! And they smelt funny, like carbolic soap, a t-shirt and long bootcut trousers, covering the tops of his feet.

"Is this supposed to be some sort of joke?" he whispered in utter rage at thin air, anger oscillating violently and uncontrollably, pacing up to the camera, "_Is this supposed to be a joke_?" England pressed his eye against the camera, "_SPEAK TO ME_!" the scream echoed around the room as anger completely took over the nation's mind, "_Fuck you, what the hell are you doing to my friends, bastards_?". Still no reply. This was a camera, wasn't somebody supposed to watch it? Wouldn't that person refuse to put up with his behaviour? Nothing happened, the room remained silent. England's eyes moved to the door with the number on, and he took a step back.

"Oh, you're going to be sorry," he thought, "you'll be sorry…"

Room number 1

Canada looked around him. It was a room similar to that which he, America, England and Italy had been thrown in earlier, the big red number 1 on the door intimidating him. An overpowering sense of hopelessness overcame him and he sank onto his back on the little platform. His red clothes smelt funny, and he felt uncomfortable knowing that he had been changed without his consent and the bracelet on his wrist made him feel horribly uneasy. He let a mild wave of depression wash over him before sitting up.

"I'm getting out of here," he thought, "and there's nothing you can do about it."

Room number 3

Water spilled over the cheeks of the Italian, and he wandered why he was there. Did they want him for something, or were they just playing cruelly with him, as a cat might play with a mouse before it eats it. The green clothes itched and smelt funny, the shoes were far too big, and green would look much better on England.

A wail welled up in his throat, emitting from his mouth in tides of sobs before turning angry. He screamed, screamed in anger- screamed because he didn't know what was happening, screamed because he had been separated from any sources of comfort that he had previously owned, screamed because he hated these people. He continued to yell and punched the wall next to him, not caring that blood spilled over and in between his knuckles. He jumped up and threw himself against the wall at the other end, streams of insults pouring from his mouth like vomit.

"Do you hear me?" He grunted roughly into the camera watching him, "You'd better fucking hear me, because I am going to kill you." He stopped briefly before starting again, "I am going to get out of here and kill you. Dare mess with me, you. Will. Die.". He stopped before he threw himself at the damned door in the wall, a thought that he sounded a little like Romano briefly crossing his mind before it was completely enveloped with burning rage.

Room number 4

"I can sort this out."

America paced the room in his new clothes, getting the feel of his trainers and exercising his brain.

"There's a way out, there always is." His fingers met his hair, and he rubbed them through it, determined to come up with an answer, his ahoge bobbing distractedly while the rest of his hair was ruffled.

"Okay." He moved to be stood in front of the door, planting his feet firmly in the concrete either side of his body.

"Here it comes…" He paused…and threw himself at the door, over and over again, pounding with his shoulders and fists for hours on end, never seeming to tire.

* * *

><p>"Stop!" Germany yelled at the writhing mass of countries for the sixth time in an hour, "Shut up." He lowered his voice.<p>

"Gimme that." Norway snarled at Switzerland, grabbing the rifle off him and firing three shots into the air, silencing everyone, plaster spattering onto the ground. The cleaners would have to do a lot of work later.

"Whoah! Norge!" Denmark yelled, laughing yet again, "You're so angry today!"

"Shut it, Denmark." Norway gave him a look that could kill several times over, "You're part of this problem, a big part of it, so I suggest you shut your mouth before this is aimed at your head."

Denmark blew threw his lips, and put his arms lazily in the air in mock defeat before silencing himself.

"Thank you." Germany stood up again, after having hastily sat down when Norway had threatened Denmark. "Now we have quiet, can we keep it? Please? We're supposed to be civilised countries, not madmen. And women." He looked at Hungary who had been brutally beating Prussia with her signature frying pan and Seychelles-at France's throat with a swordfish. They dropped their weapons and whistled innocently, eyes to the ceiling.

"Right. _I_ will sort out groups, and no one is to complain." He clicked his pen, "Let's start with Russia. I think that he should go with his sisters because they're his family."

"Err…Germany? Don't you think I should go with my dear Baltics?" he rubbed the back of his neck and laughed lightly, dodging when Belarus threw herself at him, "I mean, my sisters, they're strong. And I'm used to living with the Baltics."

"No." Germany sucked in some air, "I think family groups are almost a priority."

"But-"

"Aren't you a responsible brother?"

"I _am_ responsible and I _love_ them." He glared at Germany, "How dare you suggest I'm not?"

"Then that's all good then!" Germany clicked his pen and started to scribble, "Russia…Belarus…and…Ukraine. Alright." Russia shot him a foul look, but Germany ignored it and continued to talk.

"What about the Nordics?"

"I'll t'ke F'nl'nd."

"Yes!" Finland was glad to be paired up with a man big enough to protect him, plus he was sort of…cute? No. Finland shook his head to rid it of the thoughts. "I'd be glad to go with Sweden!"

Sweden almost smiled, but the expression was gone too quickly, as if it had been stifled.

"Right…" Germany continued to write. "Sweden and Finland. Who's next? Norway?"

"I'll have Norway! Please, let me have Norway." Denmark jumped up and hung onto Norway's shoulders, "We're like best friends, anyway."

"No. We're not." Complained Norway, pushing his attacker away, "I want to go with Iceland."

Iceland put his hands in the air slowly, as if cheering.

"_What_?" Denmark screamed, "I'll go with Norway, thanks!"

"I wanna go with Iceland." Said Norway standing up, "and you're not going to stop me." He walked over to Iceland and stood there, steadfast.

"Right." Germany started to write, "Norway and Iceland."

"But what about me?" Tears pricked the Dane's eyes, "Who am I going to go with?"

"I'll decide when everyone else has been paired up, or somebody wants to go with you."

"_That's mean_!" He started, but lapsed into silence.

"Who else? The Baltics?"

Estonia stood up, "I think I should be with Latvia. He needs someone to stop him from saying dangerous things." He glared but quickly returned his gaze to Germany.

"Sehr gut. Then, who should go with Lithuania?"

Poland raised his hand, "I, like, totally want to go with Lithuania!"

"Lithuania, are you alright with this?"

"Yeah, I think so." Lithuania smiled a little before Poland attacked him with a hug. There was much rolling of eyes and a camera clicked from Hungary's side of the room.

"It was only friendly!" Lithuania protested, but Hungary's eyes were burning with a happy passion.

"Okay." Germany regained control, "What about Hungary?"

"I'd like to go with Austria."

"Fine." Germany wrote the two names down together. "China?"

"You seem to be doing this in a completely random order!" Romano stood up, "It'll take hours!" He strode up to the front of the room and grabbed a marker pen that had collected with the papers and doodles and began to write on the wall. "Who's going with who?"

* * *

><p>The four nations that had been locked in the white rooms had long since given up trying to break free. They had been sitting in silence now for over an hour, each isolated to their own room, desperate for something, anything, to happen. It was just before the madness was going to overcome them when a voice was broadcast through the rooms.<p>

It was deep and booming, like one might expect from a football stadium, and when it began, the four countries stood up quickly, hopeful.

"I expect you want to know why you're all here?" It began and paused, "To start with, you may have noticed some changes in your appearances from when you last saw each other." Sighs of relief gushed through their bodies, relieved that their comrades were alive, before yet again being replaced by worry, "You may have noticed that your clothes have changed. You are all wearing a colour corresponding to your number-that is…the number on your doors. You will be, as of now, referred to as that number. Red is number 1-Canada. Yellow is number 2-England, green is number 3-Italy and blue is number 4-America." It stopped for a couple of seconds before continuing to speak. "You may also have noticed that you are wearing bracelets. They contain explosives unique to that bracelet, and will go off if they go within 5 metres of another type. This is a warning. You will die. You have been stripped of any powers of strength you may have previously had-this includes immortality."

"How-?" Began Canada to himself but was stopped by the voice.

"As of now, there are four of you. Be aware, that there will be more added as time passes. And yet…I have neglected to tell you what you will be doing, yes?" The nations nodded to themselves,

"Well…we want you to play a game for us." The doors slid back, revealing a silver curtain for each door, again baring the number on the doors.

"A maze. A puzzle game. Keep your wits about you. You don't know what's in this labyrinth. Pick up any clues you can find. Your objective? Escape without dieing. Good luck. You have one week."

And with that, the audio cut out, leaving the four in bewildered silence.

* * *

><p><span>Long note:<span>

Hmmm…not as long as the others…but I must say, I was quite proud of this one! I just realised, I referenced Prussia's five metres twice ^_^. Oh, and to save boring you all to death, I'll write down who's been put with who for the countries grouped together in the middle section (tell me if there are any inconsistencies or if there are better ways to do it):

**Russia, Belarus and Ukraine-Sweden and Finland-Norway and Iceland-Poland and Lithuania-Estonia and Latvia-France and Denmark-Germany and Prussia-Japan, China and -Greece, Turkey and Egypt-Spain and Romano-Switzerland, Liectenstein and Seychelles-Hungary and Austria**

Ah. They work as family groups of if they live near each other. It was difficult to group them. Seychelles was difficult seeing as she lives in the ocean, so I put her with Liectenstein. I also put some of them into some fan pairings, but some of them wouldn't work out. IDK. And OOC Italy, hoorah! (Forgive me)

Hope you enjoyed it! Woo! Saturday-Wednesday updates FTW!


	6. Chapter 6

Hello! -*Can't think of anything more interesting to say than that* First, I'm saying thank you to anyone who has put me on their story alert, author alert, favourites or reviewed or just even read ^_^. It means so much to me that people are reading my story and like it :D. Thank you, and onwards! *Waves sword*

**Hetalia does not belong to me. It belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya.**

Violence, bad mouthed-ness and personified countries.

* * *

><p>The four nations stood up in their individual rooms and started to trudge towards the doors, their footsteps light with trepidation for what might be to come. What had that mysterious voice meant? Were they meant to play a game? What sort of game?<p>

They all pushed back the curtains and started to step out before an ear-splitting yell shocked them into stopping.

"_STOP_!"

There was silence. They all listened, cautious and extremely worried for what this scream meant, their hearts pounding with anxiety and shock.

"Stop." The voice had lowered to a calm exclamation, but concern was still flowing through the atmosphere, thick and fast.

"Remember, our bracelets can't go within 5 metres of each other. Wait…" There was a pause, the Canadian accent made it clear who was speaking.

"Canada, what?"

"Just trust me. All of you, go back into your rooms. This whole thing is a game, am I not correct?"

"Well, yes." Said America, "you do have a point. This must be puzzle number one."

"Right. I think we have to get out of our rooms first, otherwise we'll get nowhere. To do this, we have to leave one at a time."

There were several grunts of approval, followed by a shuffling of feet, returning into the room they first came out of. Another scream made them all jump again.

"Fuck…Canada…" America said in a panicked voice, "Canada, look behind you."

He did as he was told and, much to his horror, saw that the wall he had just left had sprouted a hole, and in the hole, was an alarmingly large explosive, beeping once per second. The red number in the middle said 0:16.

_Hell…HELL…what are we gonna do?_

"We need to act _now_." Yelled Italy unexpectedly, "I'm going to go first, down that corridor. You must all run as far as you can down a separate one."

For the first time, they all looked properly at their surroundings, seeing four empty, gaping corridors, with no light appearing at all.

"_RUN. NOW_!"

America broke free, bolting down his corridor, unrelenting in his impressive speed, quickly followed by England, and then Canada, who barely scraped by with his life before all four time-bombs went off, resulting in a massive explosion, leaving a hole the width of a house in the floor. All four stopped running, slowing to a gentle lope before stopping and turning, inspecting the damage, and finding that the floor was in fact, hollow. The gentle sound of a river flowing at the bottom could be heard if they strained their ears.

"Crap." England cursed under his breath, but still loud enough for everyone else to hear, "Just…Oh my fairies…"

America sucked in some air through his teeth before raising his voice to say, "Nobody is to come back this way. I don't know what we're going to do, but we can't reach each other from here. I think we should just play the game at now, but see what happens. What else can we do?"

There was a pondering silence, the air beginning to reek with the stench of foul water and fish.

"I agree. We need to just go. Judging by what just happened, these maniacs are serious. We really are dicing with death." Italy's voice was tainted with thick tears, "I'm going. I think I might you again. If I don't…" He paused, his voice cut off with the thought of what might happen to him, "Tell Germany I…I…" He began to sob, "Tell him…I appreciated his friendship. Tell him I couldn't have gone on without it." He stopped, before running off without another word.

"How odd." England mused out loud, before continuing, "But I agree with him. There's nothing much that we can do other than split up and do what they want us to do at the moment. What, did he say something like, 'you have one week'?"

"Yeah, that's a bit odd." Canada said, and an underlying surge of happiness washed over him when he realised that they had been listening to him lately.

"Judging from what happened just then, we lose our lives at the end. Game over. And we need to get going now, if we want to stay alive."

They all turned and looked down the pitch-black tunnels that they had been stuck in. A gasping from America's side prompted sudden glances from the other two.

"England…Canada…I can't do it."

"America…" exclaimed England, "You have to do this. You can do this. You're the United States of America, think about that. You are home to three hundred million people and you were my little brother. You are one of my very best friends. Think about those facts, look at yourself truly and say you can do this. Say it."

"Er, guys…I really have to go now." Canada's voice rose from the tunnel furthest left, "I'll see you both later."

"Okay, that's fine. See you later." England gave Canada a glance and nod before he saw him disappear into the darkness. He turned his attention back to America, "_Say…it_."

"I can do it."

"Again, louder."

"_I can do it!_"

"Good, now add a few swear words."

"_I can bloody damn do this crappy labyrinth-thing_."

"Excellent. Now they all know you've been raised by me." England ran off, cackling before America had a chance to say anything else, and he was left all alone in the darkness.

* * *

><p>England's breath was heavy in his chest. He had been running for over twenty minutes now and he was tired.<p>

"_I've got to get more exercise." _He panted to himself, stopping to double over, letting out great rivers of breath and stopping to look around. He had a bad feeling about this place. The darkness and the soft dripping from above made him uneasy and he wasn't quite sure why he had been running for so long. He estimated that he had run about a mile now, in a straight line. He could see a little light from where he had departed from America, but it was merely a distant point, like a star. Not in the least bit helpful in his journey.

Now that he had let himself stop, he began to think about his situation. Where was he supposed to go? _Escape…_ that meant there was a way out…wasn't there? He nodded to himself, mentally scolding himself for being so stupid. Of course there was a way out, they just had to play for it.

He continued walking, feeling the darkness encompass him even more, running his hands along walls covered in slime and dripping water, wetting his fingertips and making him nervous. It was a while before he spotted another light, growing faster and brighter than the previous one. He started to jog towards it, having recovered from his last run and was grateful that he was no longer in his old clothes. As the light began to win the fight with dark, he found that the walls were getting less and less slimy and slippery. When he was a mere 20 metres from the light, he felt the walls leave his fingers, and he was in a brightly lit room, warm, with a bag stationed directly in the middle. The floor was a clean, shiny grey with a white grid pattern of size 6 tiles by 8.

"This can't be hard? Right?" He wandered out loud to himself, trying to convince himself that something terrible wouldn't happen should he do the 'incorrect' thing.

He waved it away before he could dwell more on the thought and stepped boldly onto the first tile.

_So far so good._

His mistake was stepping onto the next tile directly in front of him. It fell. England was slipping through the air, and a desperate scream was escaping his lips.

* * *

><p>America trudged along the darkening path that England had left him and gathered up all the courage he had in his soul and throwing it all over his body just to have the inner bravery to put one foot in front of the other and walk down this merciless path. He noticed dripping and looked up, to be greeted with huge stalactites growing from the ceiling.<p>

He hurried on, trying to ignore the foreboding washing over his body and continued, spotting a light further down the path. He picked up his pace, hopeful that this meant that he was free to go. Somehow, he knew it wasn't to be.

He approached the light and found a room, lights shining in from the four corners, but the moment he stepped inside, his vision went black.

He cried out, dropping to the floor, expecting to feel a pain, expecting to have been attacked, but nothing happened. After five minutes of lying on the floor, sniffling in terror and helplessness, he picked himself up, uncurling himself and kneeling, starting to shuffle himself forward, hand outstretched before hitting something. Something sharp.

"Ow."

He drew away quickly, feeling his blood seep from his finger and squishing it in his other hand, trying to stanch the flow.

"I'm never going to get out of here."

The voice was choked with sadness and the lump in his throat threatened to suffocate him. He sat there, feeling surrounded by swirls of a deep desperation and terrible longing to be safe, in front of the fire at his house, or in the welcoming arms of a friend. What inspired him to wipe his eyes was unclear, but he forgot that crimson blood was coating three digits. A light shot across his sight, and he could see, even though it was through that blood taken from his ring finger. Mildly disturbed, but still pleased that he could see, he squeezed more out and pressed it right to his eyes, before having a proper look around through blurry, red-tinted vision.

_Could it be?_

He strained his eyes harder, looking through the blood. He could see! He could really see! And he saw light!

He forced more of it out, and the relief of being able to see through his own blood was replaced by foul terror.

"Oh…my…"

* * *

><p>"Bruder, why didn't you let me go with France and Spain?" Prussia looked up at his younger brother, eyes inquisitive. He could almost be described as adorable.<p>

"Ah…well…for a start, I can't let you three go together for obvious reasons."

"What?"

"Good grief!" Germany exhaled, "the world could really go without being partially destroyed at this moment in time!"

"Oh."

"Also-" He stopped, prompting a look from his older brother again, "also…I care for you. I can't even chance you to be taken from me. I have already lost someone close to me."

They had stopped walking and Germany's hands were planted firmly on Prussia's shoulders, looking deep into the albino's eyes.

"I wouldn't be able to keep myself together." He began to sob, deep wails racking his muscly chest. "I want Italy back." He knelt down and wept into Prussia's stomach, letting his bottled up tears flow free over his cheeks. Prussia felt like he could do nothing but comfort his brother by embracing him lightly in his arms and whispering in his ear.

"It's alright, West. They'll be alright. In a few days, he'll come back, and…and…" he trailed off, feeling tears seep from his own eyes and he collapsed on the floor next to his sibling, holding him tight and howling shamelessly. It felt good to be able to let his emotions out for once. "And we'll celebrate."

"How?" Germany looked up through his tears.

"We'll have a banquet. With pasta and wurst and beer. We should probably invite everyone else round too because it'll be such a happy event."

"Yes." He began to try to stand up. "We should get ready now."

"Ja. Let's go!" They both stood up and started to walk home. "We should go to my house. It's so much more cosy and small."

They returned to Prussia's house, greeted by old barrels of beer and unwashed laundry. Prussia motioned for Germany to sit down on the messy bed and began to reach for two beer-steins, filling them with his finest pilsner, pouring a generous amount in each and handing one to his younger brother. He waited for it to be taken, before raising his glass.

"To Italy."

"To Italy."

They both paused for a moment, before throwing the golden alcohol down their throats. It burned in a good way, and helped a little. The sensation of that beer was magnificent. The liquid swirled and danced merrily in great golden globules, numbing the senses in a delightful fashion and contorting the world. It helped to fight down that little inkling that they might not see Italy again, and they started to prepare.

"I have lots of pasta in my house, from when Italy stayed at mine. It might be a little old, but it should do fine. Er...wait-" he stopped, looking at Prussia, "you should probably come with me."

"I think that too, West. Glad you're thinking straight!" he laughed, before heading to Germany's house, singing with his brother in a slightly inebriated state, but nevertheless happy and content in the belief that his Italy was coming back to him.

* * *

><p>Wow. So much emotion! It is now proven that music helps me write different emotions 0_o. I think. Anyway, a note from last update, I have decided to remove Belgium, Netherlands, Taiwan and Hong Kong due to me not being competent enough to write their characters (I am a newbie, after all XD). And I just realised yesterday that this story is going to end up horribly complicated and intricate with all all the groups and stuff. Well...just have to ride it out and see what happens ^_^.<p>

I use commas far too much .


	7. Chapter 7

Well...this chapter was difficult to write and this is just going to get incredibly complicated, so again, some of them are going to group up with others. You'll just have to watch carefully for it ^_^. On we go!

**Hetalia does not belong to me. It belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya.**

Violence, bad mouthed-ness and personified countries.

* * *

><p>"Sweden!" Finland yelled when the meeting ended, dashing over to the intimidating man, gesturing to hug, but stopped when he stood there, his expression unchanging. He ground to a halt, before asking in concern, "What's up?"<p>

"N'th'ng." He grunted. His expression dead-set in a furious scowl. Why did he always do that? Couldn't he show some expression or…affection at all?

"Are you sure?" Finland cocked his head, furrowing his brows a little in concern over the other man, "You're not normally like this.

Sweden grunted and looked down at the little Finn, "'m f'ne, th'nks." he shifted his centre of balance, subtly gesturing to the door, signalling that he was tired of standing around in a heavily-populated room and wanted to go home. Finland cocked his head again in question of if the other wanted to go, of which he got a nod. The two now knew each other so well that they could almost communicate without words, a complicated skill of theirs they had acquired over many pleasant years of each other's company. In an almost synchronised move, they both moved towards the door, but swiftly halted by a small but incredibly compacted group of people by the door, chattering away excitedly.

"Excuse me." Finland craned his neck and stood on his tiptoes trying to break the cluster so they could get through, or at least move them, but to no avail. The next moment, he was hoisted up into the air by the scruff of his neck and carried through the knot. He kicked his legs, swirling round to find himself eye-level with Sweden, his ever-unchanging expression carved there like words in a wax tablet.

"Sweden! I really don't-arghhhh!" he screamed as he was jerked up over Russia's head, who looked at the flying Finn in complex wonder. Finland quickly took an embarrassed expression and waved uncertainly at the small horde of faces looking up at him, bringing his legs up so they wouldn't hit anyone over the head. The next moment he was descending to the floor as quickly as he had been picked up and planted firmly down. He threw out his legs to stop himself falling over on the red carpet, but this wasn't needed as the Swede took a moment to plant his hand on Finland's back to stop him collapsing in front of the others. A slight push signified that they should get going immediately.

Finland walked in an angry silence, slightly displeased at the way he had just been treated, but he couldn't stop a blush creeping up his neck and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth like hooks. He found himself looking at his booted feet treading along the corridor, avoiding Sweden's gaze and grinning like a maniac. This went on for several minutes, while they left the building and headed for the airport until Finland couldn't take it any more.

"Why did you do that?" Finland's tone was insistent, his eyebrows set at an impressive angle in his best attempt at anger.

Sweden paused for a few seconds before saying, "W'nt'd t' t'ke c're 'f ya."

"You could have done that without carrying me over them!"

Sweden looked slightly hurt. He turned away his head, glasses glinting in the fluorescent light of the airport, and Finland felt terrible.

"I'm sorry."

"D'sn't m'tter." He kept his head turned away and looked down at the floor next to him. Hell, now Finland felt even worse. They continued in silence into the plane, choosing seats right next to each other and sitting in muteness, Sweden taking off his formal coat and revealing a simple t-shirt and jeans covering well-built muscles. Finland nearly choked on his own saliva at this and started coughing, thumping his own chest, feeling an irony-tasting liquid start to run down his nose.

"Oh, Lord." the Finn continued to choke, trying to get up and run to the toilet to retrieve a tissue, clamping his hand over the blood running thick and fast from his nose. Sweden stopped him with a hand on his forearm, holding out a packet of Kleenex of which Finland took and tried to stem the bleeding with.

"Y'u 'kay?"

"Yes, thank you." Finland replied curtly, continuing to press the tissues to his nose, "It must be just the altitude and pressure." he looked away, blushing furiously. Why did this always happen to him? Of course, he HAD to get a nosebleed whenever the person he would now be living with took his coat off.

"I 'gree. L'k 't th' oth'rs."

Sure enough, several people in the surrounding area had gotten explosive nosebleeds when Sweden had taken his coat off.

Finland heard whispers from the people surrounding him and looked at the large man again. Sweden's glasses reflected the light so that his eyes weren't visible, but his face was worried.

"P'rh'ps I sh'ld t'ke y' t' th' toil'ts."

"Okay."

Sweden put down his coat on the seat and stood up with Finland, shuffling along the row to the lavatory, shutting the door behind them when they got there. He picked up more tissues and began to wipe at Finland's nose concernedly, his eyes now visible. He finished cleaning them up and stood back.

"Th're."

"Thank you." Finland touched his nose gingerly, inspecting any damage. "Thank you so much!"

"N' pr'blem."

They stood there awkwardly, before the Finn grabbed the Swede's arm and held on, burying his face deep in. Sweden just stood there, puzzled, before gently holding him as well, resting his chin on the other's head. They stood there for a long time, just embracing each other like good friends. They broke, nodded, and left the toilet, heading back to their seats and waiting to get back to their house.

-o-

When they left the airport, Sweden's phone began to ring. He picked it up, and spoke. "Y's?" Static was emitted for five seconds before Sweden repeated himself more forcefully. "_Y's?_"

"You-you...Too late. You've lost...one more. Disc-over for your...yourself."

"Oh...G'd..." Sweden's eyes widened in panic and alarm, dropping the phone on the ground. "I-I th'nk...I kn'w..."

"What's wrong?" Finland picked the dropped phone off the ground, putting it in his friend's pocket. "Sweden?"

"We n'd t' get h'me. N'W." He picked up the other, cradling him in his arms and setting off at a tremendous pace to their house.

His fear were confirmed as soon as he stepped into the house. The Christmas decorations were up, nothing seemed disturbed, but Hanatamago was barking furiously, jumping up at the two desperately.

"S'l'nd?" Sweden started to tread cautiously up the stairs, "S'L'ND?" There was no answer.

"Oh, no." Finland caught on, "SEALAND!"

Sweden came down, shaking his head, heading for the sofa in the living room and slumping down onto it, followed by Finland. It was too much. They both began to sob, clasping each other like life buoys, terrified and angry and upset beyond measure. The hands on the clock ticked around to 6 am, the two friends in each other's arms, wailing their hearts out. And then they went quiet, for they had fallen asleep, tired from crying, nestled in a small mass of limbs in front of the fire with Hanatamgo curled up.

Finland woke to Sweden getting up. It was 12 o' clock in the afternoon and bright light was shining through the little crack in the curtains, leaving a trail of sunlight on the cream carpet. A wet snuffling next to his face told him that the dog was hungry. In their grief the night before, they had forgotten to feed the poor mite. Finland made to heave his aching body off the couch to feed him, but Sweden pushed him back down saying "'ll t'ke c're 'f it. Go t' sl'p." and Finland obeyed, drifting once again into a light snooze.

He was re-awoken by a nudge against his cheek. He waved it away, thinking it to be Hanatamgo again, but this nudging was stronger, more forceful and accompanied by a gentle voice.

"W'ke up. We've g't t' go."

"Huh?" the Finn prised open a bleary eye and looked around, dazed. "Why?"

"We're g'ing t' g't S'l'nd."

* * *

><p>"Liet!" Lithuania was practically glomped by the little blond nation, who had come running at him out of nowhere.<p>

"Poland!"

"Liet!"

"Poland!"

They stopped and smiled, whacking each other on the back like old friends. While in the meeting, Lithuania had felt a slight feeling of trepidation for being paired with Poland, but now any anxiety had gone, and he was left with just happiness and a feeling of welcome for the uniformed little Pole. They nodded and headed for the plane, before being stopped.

"Liet!"

"What?"

"We should, like, totally go to visit your friends Estonia and Latvia!"

"Hm," Lithuania half-nodded, "maybe, but I think-"

"That's, like, totally great then! Let's go to their house and wait outside for them!"

"Bu-" his protests were silenced when Poland grabbed him by the tie and yanked him along to another plane, changing their destination to Estonia's place on a sudden impulse.

_Oh, dear. _Lithuania thought, _It's going to be a long day._

* * *

><p>"Okay." Canada strode out along the ever-darkening corridor, "We've been kidnapped. We've been held in a room with nothing but a light and each other. Then we were taken away from each other again. Now we've almost been killed several times." he spoke out loud to himself, touching the wound still on his forehead and hissing when it stung. This was now a habit of his, commonly done while he was thinking. It can't have been good for him. "Now we've been split up again, and I am now walking down a steadily-darkening corridor, probably to my death." he stopped and sighed, running his hands down his face. The passageway, he had noticed, was wet and slimy with bumps in like iron bolts and ridges every now and again. It must have taken ages to build this.<p>

"Huh?"

He spotted a light, coloured red in the distance. Hope. He began to run at a steady pace, planting one foot in front of the other to reach the aurora. It was further than he had anticipated. It took him over half an hour of jogging to reach it, but finally, he reached the destination.

He stopped at the door, halted by the surge of a feeling of dread and worry that he might not get out again, but he had seen no other way out on his journey, so he felt that he had no chance other than to enter.

When he did, he immediately knew it was a mistake.

The entry slammed shut behind him, leaving nothing but the red light and what else was in the room.

There were seven doors, each coloured the different colours of the rainbow-red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Nothing more from his point of view. He stepped forwards, a terrible nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach, towards the doors, but felt that there was something behind him. He swiveled around, expecting something extremely dangerous to be on his back, but all he found was the door, and looking above it, he saw a huge board of stone. There were words carved into it, a puzzle of sorts, relating to the doors that were now behind the Canadian.

_"Your own true colour,_

_for it is now your world."_

They scared him slightly. He had never liked cryptic poems, they scared him a little with their uncertain nature and words that twisted round each other like snakes. He had often gone out of his way to avoid them, but now his life depended on it.

"True colour." he started to pace in a circle. Which part of the poem was relevant?

"Colour...colour...true?" he looked down at his new trainers. Wait.

His trainers. They were red. He jerked, almost shocked backwards. He started to frantically pick at his clothes, inspecting them. Of course! They were red! The light was red! The whole puzzle screamed red! He marched smartly towards the door, his hand on the knob before he caught himself.

Could this be a trick?

He stepped back, looking at all the other doors and his hand on the doorknob, thinking pensively.

What else could it be?

"Well," he said out loud, "goodbye, cruel world." and he opened it.

* * *

><p>Italy's heart was racing, pushed on by the adrenalin of the explosion and his taking charge for once. He squealed in delight in the back of his throat. He hadn't acted like a coward! He hadn't just waved his white flag, he had taken charge and saved everyone's lives. Mostly. He jumped, pumping his fists into the air and cycling his legs. He had never felt better. Although...he would have rather been with Germany.<p>

He shook his head, ridding it of thoughts of his poor friend. He knew he would get out.

There was a dripping in the little tunnel of water from up above. The air smelt like dank moss, he tasted it on his tongue. And the light was getting dimmer. He continued until there was no light at all, listening to the plip-plops of water getting less and less noisy. What was odd was the pressing feeling in his ears and he was beginning to loose the feeling in his fingers. This was weird.

He stopped, jamming his hands against the wall, trying to get something, but nothing was to be found. His hands felt like little stubs ending at his wrists. He then realised that he could no longer hear the dripping or smell the moss or see anything. Turning around, he expected to see a star-like speck of light in the distance, but still, he saw nothing. He began to panic, a sick feeling creeping up his gut like a slimy monster would suck onto his waist and drag him down. He collapsed, feeling as if he was now worth nothing. Having no input means no output. He was just a human-shaped lump of flesh that could think.

"Merda!" He heard the word in his head, but it sounded nasally and close. He needed to hear it echo. Feeling around aimlessly, his fingers came into contact with something...and he felt his sense of touch cascade back to him.

* * *

><p>Chapter 7 finished! Writing Sweden is difficult. Maybe I shouldn't replace so many of his vowels with apostrophes? Meh... Sorry if it's a bit confusing with all the jumping around between scenes. Until next time...!<p> 


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter number 8 is here ^_^. Update info has been updated C:

**Hetalia does not belong to me. It belongs to** **Hidekaz Himaruya.**

Violence, bad mouthed-ness and personified countries.

* * *

><p>"Brother…"<p>

"No." Russia said calmly, slammed down his suitcase and walked to the coat rack, removing his outermost layer of clothing but keeping his scarf on over the thick jumper underneath. He was sick and tired of Belarus' constant queries, he was almost sure that she had always known the answer, but why just ask over and over again? He made for the sofa in the living room and flopped down onto it as if his bones were tired, reaching for the bottle of vodka he always kept on the side-table.

The room was large, as was most of Russia's house, snow and high winds battered the sides of the abode violently in what could appear like attempts to break it down. The walls were all painted a sharp white with occasional light blue lines running down it vertically, the carpet was also a light blue but all the furniture was wooden, save for the sofas and beds, which were a thick cream colour. Obviously in an attempt to brighten up the place, Russia had placed sunflowers in vases at various strategic points around each room, but it hadn't worked well.

The journey hadn't been good. They had struggled some distance from the airport in Moscow to get to the house against said winds and snow. His scarf had nearly been snatched from him, Belarus and Ukraine had not been protected from the weather at all and were consequently sneezing and shivering in his hallway, his suitcase had almost been forgotten and it was so difficult to walk through knee-seep snow. Now they had arrived, and Russia was sat down reaching for his beloved vodka.

Belarus and Ukraine were in the hall when they heard a high shriek from the other room. It was so loud; they jumped violently and ran through to the room yelling their brother's name.

"Russia, what's wrong? Are you okay?"

Russia was still sitting down, the vodka still in his hand, and a look of pure fright and fury was sketched onto his round face.

"No! I'm not okay!" he turned around, holding the bottle in his hand, "There's no vodka left!"

"What?" Ukraine was puzzled, "You screamed at the top of your lungs because there's no vodka? Go to the pantry and get some more."

Russia emitted a huge groan and lifted himself off the couch and trailed to where the vodka was kept usually. The two sisters were left in a moment of silence, before there was another yell, even louder than the first.

"_There's none here either_!"

"Oh, lord help us." Ukraine put her hands together and looked at the ceiling before rushing into the kitchen and trying to console the huge man. His vodka was one of the few things in this world he really liked, so it was always disastrous when it was taken away from him. When she entered the kitchen, she saw a distraught Russia leaning desperately into the pantry, clawing at the food products in there, seeking out one last bottle. She rushed up to him and turned him around, holding him firmly.

"Russia, it's okay."

"No, it isn't." tears seeped from his eyes, "I like vodka."

"I know. I know." Ukraine gently pulled her brother from the cupboard and led him to the room he was in before and sat him down. She turned to Belarus, desperately saying, "Check all the rooms. Go now."

The younger girl nodded curtly and turned, padding out of the room, setting upstairs to find something. Half an hour later, nothing had been found but empty bottles. Belarus returned to her big sister, shaking her head sadly and shrugging. Russia was now rocking himself a little with a red nose and eyes.

It was then that Ukraine had an idea. Moving to Belarus, she whispered in her ear, "I've got an idea. I'm going to Hungary's place. I'll be back in a few hours."

"Isn't there a shop around here?"

"Take a look around you. The airport's nearer, and frankly, I think any alcohol shop would be closed right now."

"Right."

"Just trust me."

-o-

Thankfully, Hungary was at her house with Austria when Ukraine arrived there. Passionate piano music was flowing from inside the huge mansion, presumably from Austria, and Ukraine stopped to listen for a few seconds before knocking at the door.

"Hello? Who is it?"

Hungary's voice was suspicious and slightly forceful with traces of...fear?

"State your name."

"I am Ukraine."

"Let me see." The letterbox opened, revealing a pair of narrowed green eyes. A round glint of steel flashed dangerously to the right side of them, and Ukraine stepped back, showing herself in full.

The music stopped and there were quick footsteps behind Hungary and the green eyes left to reveal violet ones, eyeing her warily. Hushed whispers on the other side could be heard for a few seconds, before they opened the door and stepped aside, letting her in.

"What was that for?"

"Well..." Austria rubbed the back of his neck and looked down, "we're being...careful...right now. What with lots of people going missing and such." he stepped back to let Ukraine in, "Now, what brings you here?"

Ukraine paused before speaking, "I was here to see Hungary, actually. Something's cropped up with Russia and we need her help in fixing it."

"Ah, is that so?" Hungary stepped forwards, "What's up? Has he picked a fight with someone?"

"Er, no. He's..." she stopped, looking at Austria and then back to the other, "can we talk in private?"

"Absolutely. Austria, go and play the piano. We'll go upstairs." Austria walked into the other room and the two women began to climb the marble stairs with gilded handrails. It certainly was a beautiful place; flowers cascaded over the windowsills letting in bright light, and there seemed to be either a piano or a cello in each room. And it was _so warm_... Ukraine rubbed her arms, she wished to live in this sort of climate one day. They entered a great oak door and shut it, Hungary turning to the other.

"So, what's up?"

"Well...I'll put it straight to you...Russia's run out of vodka-"

"No! Really? Oh...lordy..."

"And I thought I'd come to you, seeing as your people consume a bit of alcohol. I thought you might have some?"

"Yes, I think I do, let me check..." Hungary dived into a nearby cupboard. A loud crashing made the girl flinch, but she was delighted to see several bottles emerging. She let the other climb out, and took the bottles, thanking her hastily.

"It's no problem. Austria doesn't know I've found his secret booze supply yet. He drinks from it every night. Anyway, here you are. If you need any more, just tell me." She smiled and led Ukraine downstairs and to the door, saying goodbye and waving. Just as Ukraine was about to leave the garden, she heard Hungary yell something. Turning around to listen, she heard "Be very careful." She nodded, smiled and left.

-o-

When Ukraine got back, Russia was on his side, sobbing his heart out. Belarus was sat at the other side of the room, cross-legged with such a foul look on her face, it could have curdled milk.

"I'm back!" Neither Russia nor Belarus made a move to greet her. "Russia! I got you something!"

"Not interested."

"No, seriously, you'll like it! I'll bring it to you." She brought the package through and revealed it to him, presenting the bottles with a flourish. "I got you some vodka!"

Russia was sat up at once, attentive. He stopped crying and latched onto the bottles at once. Belarus got up, astounded.

"Where did you get those?"

"Hungary's place." She smiled, before turning her attention to Russia. Then, everything went wrong. He choked, a great hacking sound, and spat the alcohol out.

"This is water!"

* * *

><p>England screamed as the tile fell beneath him. His arms and legs flailed wildly and the world spun around him sickeningly fast like a tornado. In a last-ditch attempt, he flung up his hands and hoped for the best, knowing that in the likely event that his hands didn't catch onto anything, he would die. He waited for what seemed like an eternity until he realised that he was in fact, hanging from the tile he had just stepped off. His hands burned scarlet-raw like a raging fire as the sharp edge cut deep into his palms as he swung there, suspended above the terrible-roaring thick blackness of the cavity lurching alarmingly beneath him. Blood began to run from between his knuckles and he knew that he had to pull himself to safety. With all his strength-both mental and physical, he hauled himself out of danger, screaming in pain from his slit palms, leaving smears of his own red fluids on the previously clean surfaces, and the muscles in his shoulders twitched violently, his neck shaking.<p>

Veins began to protrude from his cheeks and temple, his eyes bulged from their sockets, and finally he collapsed onto the floor, heaving the rest of his body along with his head, chest and shoulders and lying there, weeping in relief and pain. He never noticed that he was laid across three tiles; not one. He was just glad to be alive, and the experience had caused a great mental toll on the Briton. He fell asleep, lying there, unmoving for hours until he woke with that blissfully ignorant feeling one gets when they've woken from a peaceful slumber. Then the feeling of dread washed over him again in a terrible wave of adrenalin and he fully realised where he was and what he had just gone through. The first thing he spotted when he opened his eyes was the bag in the middle of the room, feeling tantalisingly close, yet still so terribly far. There could be death between him and this bag, but he didn't see any other way out.

He took a deep breath and exhaled heavily, whispering encouragements to himself, edging his way along the tiles. He saw that the ones he had touched and not fallen were a bright sunflower-yellow colour, as if illuminated by lights strong enough to permeate the square flat blocks. Perhaps these were safe? He tapped out a toe to the rightmost block and felt it fall beneath his foot, scaring him a little, but he moved on nevertheless. Next he moved to the tile left of the one his face had been resting on while he slept, also tapping out a foot, but finding that it didn't fall. It just glowed yellow. He heaved a sigh of relief and moved fully onto that one. He knew somehow in the back of his mind that this was the correct path and he would be completely safe if he got just yellow tiles.

He continued this method, touching each block lightly before he stepped onto it, testing the stability of everything that his feet came into contact with and he followed a path going (from the aforementioned block) up, up, up, right and right. He saw the bag. He was practically on it. The mystery was going to be solved soon enough. Cackling, he lifted the bag and practically ripped the neck open in his overwhelming haste to discover what was inside. To his surprise, all he found was a blanket and some food, and he closed it in slight disappointment but a little relief. The thought of food had been hanging at the back of his mind for a while now. The wounds he had acquired from the sharp edge of the slab stung, but he ignored it, and swung the rucksack onto his shoulders.

The scrape of stone against stone made him look back to see each row of slabs falling one ofter the other. He was the fourth row in, and the second row had just fallen. With a great cry of surprise and terror, he moved on, stepping up the speed of his technique, tapping and stepping continuously. It was catching up, faster and faster. The row behind him fell...

He released a terrible yell and leapt the last two rows as the stone collapsed beneath his feet, leaving the same chasm that had threatened to take England's life recently, and landed nimbly on his feet in the exit, in front of a door. He straightened his back and brushed down his sides, mumbling something about being a "true gentleman" and opened the door.

* * *

><p>"Hell..." America whispered to himself, his eyes widening in terror, but being quickly shut again after he lost some of the little vision he had left. Somewhere in his head, he wished that he had never been able to see what was now laid out in front of him, but you can't undo the past, and there he was, staring dumbfounded at it.<p>

The room beyond the blood was illuminated by a roaring fire to the right of his crouched figure, throwing a golden flickering light over the stone walls and floor. It was almost like home, but this had a menacing feel to it, like something or someone was watching him. As he turned his attention to the rest of the room, more features started to fit in: a largish golden chalice on an intricately-decorated stone pedestal; the mantle above the fire; a red rug with gilded edges stretched out on the floor...and movement in the far wall?

He stepped up to it and placed his hand up to the motion, feeling the last of the blood slip from his eyes, and he was left there in complete darkness with nothing but the feeling of moving stone against his palm and the sound of the fire. He got down again and tried to once again find the place where he had cut himself. He was unsuccessful. He shifted here and there, waving his arms around foolishly in his search until he came into contact with the pedestal he had seen before. Crowing in delight at his find, he tensed his muscles and hauled himself up, flopping over his anchor and feeling the chalice, reveling in the silky feeling of the gold. He dipped his hands inside, feeling liquid lap softly against his fingers and coat the tips; it felt too thick to be water...maybe...

In one smooth move, the new liquid was splashed against his eyes, once again revealing the world to him in that familiar crimson shimmer and so he returned to the swirling wall. If he looked hard enough, he could see a face; it's eyes and mouth loosely closed, slack and drooping softly. America tiptoed cautiously up to it, arm outstretched warily in case it was dangerous, and to his surprise, the mouth opened, revealing a bag inside above the huge tongue and behind teeth like blunt axes.

He placed his hand inside the mouth and was alarmed to find that he could feel warm air gushing out of it and a humid brume rising from the quivering muscle in the centre. With the gentle convulses, the bag dipped as if it was on a calm wave, rippling back and forth. America snatched out his hand quickly, grabbing the bag from the gorge in the face and yanked it out quickly, terrified that something would happen. Nothing did.

"That's odd." He was surprised to hear the sound of his own voice, but he was relieved nonetheless that he hadn't been bitten or attacked. Relaxing, he sighed in relief, realising that once again, he was losing his vision. Walking over to the bowl, he started to get a slightly paranoid feeling in his stomach but still went on. The experience seemed to get worse every second-as he splashed the liquid over his eyes and made towards a door at the other side of the room. His heart was beating faster and faster, a throbbing, gut-wrenching feeling crept up his stomach towards his throat and he ran. Ran towards the door as the fear mounted and mounted in his stomach.

He could hear voices-whispers that made him stop dead in his tracks: "_Don't go. Stay with us._"

Slowly, he turned his head to see a child in a nightgown standing there, very pale with a white haze surrounding her. A ghost.

"GO AWAY!" he swiped a hand at it and turned to the door, finding that it was staring him in the face, reaching out for his eyes. He brought his neck away, terrified of it, and dodged, reaching for the handle. The ghost burned bright red and hissed, baring fangs like daggers and screamed in Latin in pure and unadulterated rage, doing all in it's power to stop him, but it was too late, and America was out the door, slamming it in it's face.

On the other side, America slid down and put his face in his hands from relief, the bag laying partially forgotten at his side. His eyes were closed and after a few minutes, he stood up.

He was laughing.

* * *

><p>That's Chapter 8 ^_^. I have found out that I have a horrible tendency to make the first part really long and the other parts very short 0_o. Next, the bit about Hungary-apparently, that is the country with the highest consumption of alcohol (in the characters I'm using in this story). Go check it if you don't believe me! Russia's right below her. I was trying to find highest consumption of vodka, but I couldn't find it... Anyway, thank you for reading!<p> 


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9. I understand that concerns were raised over _why _America was able to see through the blood. This _will _be explained later on, so everything's alright ^_^.

**Hetalia does not belong to me. It belongs to** **Hidekaz Himaruya.**

Violence, bad mouthed-ness and personified countries.

* * *

><p>When Estonia and Latvia got home, they were surprised to find Poland and Lithuania standing outside, looking fairly bored; Lithuania sat on the doorstep and Poland picking at his nails, his hips at an extremely odd angle, leaning heavily on the left leg. They were both shivering slightly and looking around in hopes of seeing the two other Baltic nations. They straightened up when they saw their friends. A light snow dusted the ground; the trees were heavily frosted; the pond had frozen over and the pavement had become an icy slide, just waiting to give anyone who dared walk on it a good slide. Latvia was foolish enough not to notice this and dashed up to his friends, slipping over backwards and shooting down the path like a rocket launching across the ground. He came to a stop when Poland put out his foot, halting the little man in his journey and helping him stand up, wobbly knees all over the place. Estonia was more careful. He picked his way cautiously around the pavement through the gate and stepped onto the grass as soon as it was possible, coating his shoes in snow, but walking on nevertheless.<p>

"Like, what took you so long guys?" Poland's tone was bitchy and filled with anger at the other two, "Lithuania and I have been waiting here for, like, months. We don't appreciate freezing to death!"

"I'm sorry." Estonia spoke over Latvia, "The plane was delayed. As usual." He snorted through his nostrils in annoyance at the unreliability of public transport. "Plus, the ice doesn't make walking conditions easy." He looked at the smaller man, who, when inspected carefully enough, could be seen to have cuts and bruises of various sizes littering his body.

"Jā, it wasn't that easy. I must've fallen over at least fifteen times."

"But, like, that's totally not the point. You're just making it worse by standing here discussing it with us. Let us in, proszę" he motioned impatiently at the front door in what could have been analysed as a rude gesture in someone other than Poland. However, his friends were used to it by now and let him in without any questions or lectures and they all stepped into the large house of Estonia.

"Nice place you have." Lithuania complimented, earning a warm smile from the Northernmost Baltic and a death-glare from Poland. Latvia was busy piling furniture against the door and starting a fire in the grate. He succeeded, and all four were overcome by waves of heat.

"Latvia?" Estonia questioned the fifteen-year-old.

"Mm?"

"Why did you pile my furniture against the door?"

"It's cold outside."

"Hea leina, that won't help! And we have nowhere to sit now!"

"And it's to keep Russia away. He scares me and has an annoying and upsetting tendency to pick me up and stretch me."

"Ah. I admit, it worries me when he does that. You had a good point, Latvia, but he's with his sisters. Now let's take the furniture away." He walked to the door and began to take the barricade away, carefully removing the precariously-stacked armchairs and tables. "You'll both have to go soon, I'm afraid. We don't really have space for two more."

"That's fine." Lithuania started to walk to the door, "We have to get home, anyway." he opened the door, but was blown back by ferocious winds and driving snow, clouds swirling and mixing in the sky as if they were meringue in a bowl. Drawing back with blasted hair and wide eyes, he grimaced.

"Maybe not." Poland pushed back to the living room, "I, like, guess we're stuck with you two then!" He smiled broadly and laughed, a tinkling laugh like glass against acrylic.

"So..." Latvia asked casually, "How long's the blizzard gonna last?"

"I don't know." was the reply he got, "the internet's out." Estonia held up his laptop, showing an error message, "I think we're stranded."

"Great. Just fantastic."

* * *

><p>Japan had been in his room for over 18 hours now, and China and Korea were beginning to get worried. He had only come out to bring food to his room, not saying a word to the other two. It was beginning to worry them. They were stood outside Japan's room, knocking at his door, China raising his voice so he could be heard through the wood.<p>

"Japan, what's wrong-aru?"

There was silence in Japan's room for a moment, before he hastily replied, "nothing, I'm fine."

"It doesn't seem like it. How long have you been in there?"

"I don't know."

"Well, it's a long time." he stopped and looked at Korea, who shrugged. "Are you hiding something from us?"

"No! Not at all!"

A wicked exchange of looks between China and Korea decided what was going to happen next.

"Fine, we're coming in."

"No! Please don't." Clicking could be heard from inside the room, making it clear that his friends were attempting to enter. "You can't!"

"Oh, really?" Korea was the one to speak now, replying in a mocking tone, "If you're not hiding something, let us in, why don't you?"

"No."

"Fine." they sniffed and looked at each other with evil smiles, turning away from the door and heading down the stairs for the cellar. Reaching it, they pushed on the knotted wood with it's rusty ring and it squeaked open, revealing darkness. Flicking on the light, they both descended, beginning to talk again.

"Right. Are you thinking what I'm thinking-aru?"

"I don't know. I'm thinking 'where's the axe'."

"Excellent."

They looked around for the hatchet, brushing away old webs and there was the occasional yelp from one of the two if they were 'attacked' by a beetle or spider. They had been looking for a few minutes when China let out a yelp of triumph. Poking out from behind a shelf, he held up a huge plush of Hello Kitty and squealed, squashing it between his arms in a bone-(or fluff)crushing hug.

"It's so cute-aru!"

"Stop it. We're here to look for the axe."

"But-"

"No." Korea marched over to China, yanking the plush from his loving arms and placing it on the floor, "We don't need that kind of distraction." he stopped dead. He had seen a flash out of the corner of his eyes. Walking up to it, he picked up the hatchet, feeling the weight in his arms, testing it's stability. China watched him with worried eyes and began to speak.

"You look like a serial killer in that pose-aru."

"I know, right?" he laughed, throwing his head back and shifting his balance, all fingers wrapped firmly around the handle, swinging it over his shoulder, acting as if he was going to chop...

"Stop it-aru."

"Okay." he dropped his pose and headed back towards the stairs, climbing them warily. "Come on!"

"Fine." China picked up his plush and with it clamped tightly in his hands, he trotted merrily towards Korea.

It wasn't easy climbing all these stairs with the steel axe. The metal dragged on the wood and carpet, Korea's muscles aching, neck twitching with effort and the sharp edge was beginning to slice the furniture. Japan wasn't going to be happy. Finally, after over five minutes of labour, they reached Japan's room and yelled to him again.

"Japan, let us in now or you will regret it."

"No."

"Fine." They two men looked at each other and in a synchronised move, both helped each other bring the axe over their heads.

"3, 2, 1...GO!"

It only took one swing, when the door came into contact with the sharp metal, it buckled violently and splintered in the middle, throwing it clean off it's hinges, showering the surrounding area with fragments of wood. It balanced precariously for a moment, before tipping over into Japan's room.

"We're a lot stronger together than we thought!"

"Yeah, and now we look like Belarus. Never mind..." they entered, finding the place dark, what little light was there was shining from a computer screen. Plates littered the floor and the bed was untouched, still immaculately made. Papers were lined up neatly on the floor, some more than one piece deep. It was as if Japan had been conducing some sort of...investigation.

Picking their way around the paper, Korea and China made their way to Japan, who was scowling ferociously at them and had minimised all the tabs on his computer, trying to hide what he had been researching.

"Japan-"

"I don't want to hear it." he turned back to the computer in a sulk, embarrassed that he had been caught and angry that the other two had practically destroyed his room. He brought up the tabs again, and continued to type, looking sporadically at internet pages. Various sights with lots of data in graphs and tables and lord knows what else.

"You've been researching? What?"

Japan sighed, swivelling round in his chair to look at the others reluctantly. He had bags under his eyes, and he was a pale as the moon itself, although that could have been the poor lighting. "It's a task of mine, a project. I value my friends. Because I'm so worried, I decided to use the information we have to try and track down the people that took our friends."

"Good grief, man..." China rushed to his side, "How are you going to do that-aru?"

"I don't know..." He sighed in defeat, "I have little information, compiled in these sheets on the floor. I've tried looking at everything. Nothing seems to fit..."

"Why did you not let us in then?"

"I thought you'd be angry or mess with my information."

"No!" Korea walked over, "We'd never do that. Why would we be angry?"

"I don't know..."

"Can we help?"

Japan looked up, eyes wide. "Do you think you could...?"

"Yep. In what way do you need our help?"

"Well..." he paused guiltily, "I would like some tea right now."

* * *

><p>"<em>Your one true colour"<em>

Canada passed through the red door, expecting death to await him on the other side, but he was surprised. Another room stood in front of him, circular and tall. Again, like the other room, the door slid shut when he passed right through it, trapping him inside again. He sighed, this could get old, and he didn't feel the fear like he had in the room he had just left. Of course, he was still a little scared, but not as much; he could predict what was going to happen. Boldly stepping forwards, he turned and lifted his head to look for the stone again, but to his surprise, it was nowhere to be found. The light had changed as well, it was not coloured like in the other, but just a pure, white, penetrating brightness that forced the blond to squint his eyes. It was getting brighter...

Starting to properly panic now, he squished his eyes closer together and began to wave his arms out in front of him, searching for any sort of clue to where he was supposed to go, or what to do next. Stumbling, he tripped over his feet and felt a wooshing in his ears and winds shifting his head, battering it about and growing stronger like the light had. He curled up in a ball on the floor, shivering, eyes now completely closed in terror and a temporary blindness caused by the glow, completely expecting to die then and there. He waited, wishing more than anything else in the world that he could be safe at home, cuddling Kuma-whatsit and watching hockey or just to be comfortable.

_'_maybe I'm going to a comfortable place now?' thoughts began to float across his head of what it might be like to be dead. Still, he remained curled up on the stone floor.

It stopped. Not suddenly, but it stopped. The wind died down, the light dulled to a low, almost throbbing wave, and Canada unfurled his head from his chest warily. Maybe he _was_ dead.

No, he decided. He was wearing the same itchy clothes he had before, and he was still laid on a stone floor. Or...was it stone?

Picking himself up, he straightened his back and gathered what non-frayed nerves he had, exploring the place with his eyes. The shape and size of the room had changed to a cuboid; long and thin, like a corridor. This room was completely different to what he had encountered before, looking almost regal, scarlet carpet thrown across the length, reaching for a door at the other end and crystal chandeliers hung like intricate earrings from the ceiling. Beginning to walk, he found paintings lining each wall, getting more gruesome as he moved on: Alice and the mad hatter having tea and scones at a table, to a bloody carnage, their remains barely recognisable. Canada didn't like this at all. It was horrible and creepy, scratching at his eyes, practically screaming: "This is dangerous, get out now!" but there was no other way. This had to be the right answer...

Pushing at the entry, he made his way inside.

"Oh, shit."

"Brother."

* * *

><p>"What?" Italy dropped the stone again, letting his touch slip away and picking it back up again, "How...is this possible?" several times he put down and picked up the little object, questions buzzing in his mind. "This isn't right..." this was a game, of which he knew none of the rules. He pressed it against his eyes, surprised to find that he could see. Hang on...<p>

The bracelet. He had forgotten about it completely. Maybe...this had something to do with it...?

Fumbling with it, he found a socket, probably just big enough to hold the stone-object-thing and slot it in, feeling all of his senses come back to him. "What the...?" Italy's eyes were trained on the bracelet, "How the hell does that work?"

Hearing something moving, he stopped talking to himself and dropped his arms, worried that anything could be nearby. Anything. Something moved in a shadow. Something human-sized.

Subconsciously hissing, Italy drew back, ready to run away, or at the most, defend himself against either wild animal or machine that was set on him. He would expect no less from this place.

"Hello?" the voice that was emitted from the shadows was quite high, with an English accent and was laced with traces of fear and anxiety. Italy, still, said nothing, suspecting a trap. The people who set this place up obviously wouldn't hesitate to kill him. Why wouldn't they use the lure of other humans? Seeing the door at the other side of the room, he decided to take a chance and attempt to get out. This would mean coming out of the shadows for a few seconds to get there. Preparing himself, he took off his shoes and got to grips with running as quietly as possible.

3...2...1...Go.

Doing a strange mix of running and springing, he started to travel towards the door, but stopped in his tracks when the voice spoke again.

"Italy, is that you?"

'Wait, it's someone I know.'

Almost falling over, Italy turned and stared at the source of the noise, feeling foolish a being caught trying to get out without any shoes and embarrassed at how tense his body was. Loosening up, he began to walk to the figure curled up against the wall, seeing it come into view. It was Sealand.

"Sealand! What are you doing here?"

"I don't know." Sealand was close to tears, "What are you doing here?"

"I admit, I don't know either."

It was now that Italy realised that he was standing close to the boy. Jumping back, he yelled, "Oh no! We're gonna die!"

"_Calm down! _What's wrong?"

"The bracelets!"

"What bracelets?" Sealand checked his wrist, "I don't know anything about a bracelet."

"What?" Italy inquired, grabbing the boy's wrists and inspecting them, "You don't have one? That's weird."

"No. And you do?"

"Si. We die if we come close to each other."

"Good lord, this is messed up. Is England here?"

"He's in this labyrinth..." Italy paused, "but I don't know if he's still alive." there was an awkward silence, before he started again, "Come on, we've got one week to get out. I'll fill you in as we move along."

* * *

><p><span>Note<span>

And Sealand appears! This chapter was difficult to write. And I have information about it:

1) I got the Alice-and-mad-Hatter idea from a place called the Forbidden corner. This story may be chock-full of references to that place, because they're both very similar XD. Both have really creepy parts. It's an old little folly in North Yorkshire, and it's a really great place to visit. Really weird. But I digress...

2) I've done it AGAIN with Italy. It _will _be explained, though. Just stay with me.

Lastly: Eurovision was on last night. Well done to Azerbaijan for coming first and congratulations to Italy and Sweden for second and third. Also, I thought that Georgia's song was excellent. You can tell why Eurovision is important for a Hetalia fangirl :). It made me laugh so hard when I found out that Jedward were performing for Ireland XD. Fantastic hair as per usual ^_^


	10. Chapter 10

Long note is long:

Pfui! I'm so, so sorry that this hasn't gone up earlier. The internet died last Wednesday afternoon and we haven't been able to get it back up until now D: but, here it is…enjoy! Oh, and it'd be a waste of time to follow all the countries (that are not in the maze); some of which won't actually be doing anything, so I'll just write the ones that are important to the story. If any groups I metioned earlier do not come up, then they are just at home chilling and/or worrying about their friends ^_^. If you do want me to write them though, tell me, and I'll see what I can do-it's just that it'd draw the story out a bit.

Enough talking (or writing)!

**Hetalia does not belong to me. It belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya.**

Violence, bad mouthed-ness and personified countries. (I have used this disclaimer and warning so many times XD)

* * *

><p>"Remind me, <em>Danemark<em>, what are we doing here?"

France's query was answered by a long laugh and a cheerful tap on the nose from the tallish man, angering the Frenchman and making him draw away in annoyance and disgust. He snorted, wrinkling his nose, Denmark continuing to laugh a tinkling laugh.

"My dear France, if I were to tell you, I fear you would hate me forever. Mind, you have no way out of it now; you're just over ten-and-a-half-thousand feet in the air somewhere over the north Atlantic ocean. But of course, we're heading for Oslo."

"_What?_" France screamed, silencing the obnoxious Dane, "You bundled me on this plane, letting me believe that we were heading for _Danemark_!"

"Well," Denmark's tone was abnormally quiet, "It wouldn't have worked if you hadn't have noticed. Plus-" he was interrupted by death-threats but spoke over him, "Plus, the flight…_did_…say Oslo various times, and we walked past the signs saying the name at least twice."

"_Mais_…_mais_ I thought you got lost. Alas, I was incorrect." France turned his head away, upset, with betrayal streaking his tone. This made Denmark feel slightly upset at his own gross misjudgement and own demanding and sometimes controlling behaviour, causing him to apologise immediately.

"_Undskyld_, France. Shall we go back?"

"It's too late now! Plus, I want to see more of Norway! The meeting we had there didn't give us enough time to look around, and I'm sure you want to see him?"

"_Ja_, I do."

"_Très bien_."

They both sat back and watched the clouds floating by, preparing for a long journey.

-o-

When the two arrived at Norway's house, they waited outside, watching snow fly past their eyes and get stuck up their noses, France shivering violently, Denmark not so much. Spotting Norway and Iceland, they fist-pumped in the air and grinned.

"What?" France and Denmark continued to smile, watching them grow steadily larger until they were right in front of the Dane and Frenchman, "What...are you doing here?" Norway's words were enraged with hints of curiosity, "Come on, out with it."

"I wanted to see you." Denmark took the Norwegian and swung him round and down in a violent helix as if in a dance. Norway remained completely stiff, straightened up afterwards, brushed himself off and bristled.

Taking up an angry posture, he began to yell: "Well, _I _don't want to see _you. _I'm grouped with Iceland. End of." Iceland crossed his arms smugly behind Norway, Mr Puffin yelling a slew of profanities.

"Don't blame me." France backed into a corner; "He tricked me into coming."

"France, you should have known better than to trust _Denmark _of all people." the Norwegian gave France a foul look before returning it to the smirking Dane, "You. You deceitful, foolish, hideous little man."

"Ha! You can hardly call me little. I tower over you." he looked pointedly down his nose, "And I'll save your time. From now on, my name is 'Your Awesomeness' to you."

"Like hell it is." Norway slapped him across the face, causing him to hiss and draw backwards, "You can bloody get back to Denmark or France or wherever it is you're staying and look after yourself. I'm not having kidnappers in my house if they're after you."

"Ah, but that's precisely the problem." Denmark smirked and stroked the other's face, "I'm here to look after you."

"No. You're not." Norway batted the hand away, "I can look after myself. How dare you suggest I can't?" he looked backwards, "Plus, because Iceland's here, I don't have enough space for you two."

"Aha! So you _were _planning on taking us in?"

"Well...no...not really. I-" Norway sighed, "Yes. It was a lapse in judgement."

"That's fantastic then. I'm sure I could buy a few beds off the humans for France and myself?"

Iceland coughed before interjecting, "Not if you break them all first, fatso."

"I'm not fat!" Denmark yelled indignantly, "I'm just...muscly."

"Yeah, right. I'm not happy about you staying if Norway isn't and you're going to know it. If you're going out to town, get us some food as well. And don't get run over again. I know how you are with roads."

"Alright mum, don't fuss." Denmark's jibe tapered off after he received a look that could kill from him, "I'm sorry, sorry, we'll just...go now. Bye." and ran out of the door.

"Get lost, and don't call me 'mum'." Iceland's rage went unnoticed and France's apologies cut it off.

"_Désolé, désolé_." He backed off and shot out of the door after Denmark.

-o-

"Oh, _sacre bleu_, _Danemark__, _put the bed down before you draw even more attention to us." Denmark looked at France through the railings, barely catching people's amazed expressions and continued to grin, oblivious.

"What?"

"I said…" France walked round to the Dane and yelled in his ear: "_I said; would you put the bed down, you're drawing attention to us?"_

Denmark jumped and looked around at the small crowd that was beginning to form around them.

"Good lord, France. I think you're right." And with that, he dropped the beds and pretended to struggle to drag them both along.

"What the hell, _Danemark_? You must be the strangest person I've ever met."

A person walked up to France and whispered in his ear; "Why do you call him Denmark?"

"Wha- er… it's just a nickname I have for him."

"Why's he so strong?"

"Eh…he likes to…" France averted his eyes uncomfortably, "he goes to the gym…_oui_, a lot."

Denmark looked at the Frenchman, "What?"

"_Euh_, let's go, _Danemark_." He pulled the Dane off, the two beds dragging noisily behind them. When they arrived at Norway's house, it was beginning to snow, and France fumbled with the doorbell.

"_Danemark__, _you stupid _connard. _Don't show everyone how abnormally strong you are. It'll draw attention to us."

A slam and whoosh of air alerted the two of Norway opening the door. Nodding to the frowning Scandinavian, they trudged in, dragging the beds behind them, and headed for the fire.

* * *

><p>The first thing that greeted England when he walked through the door was another passage, about ten metres in length, leading to a ladder descending into the earth. The light gave the corridor an earthy feel, and the walls seemed to be made of hard rock, mud and clay that highlighted yellow against the dull muck. The air smelt dank and mossy, as it might in a mine or natural cave. Looking upwards, he saw stalactites growing down and dripping off and onto his face, blurring his vision and making him shiver. Now he thought of it, the temperature was low but not freezing. Very similar to a cave.<p>

He grimaced, wiping the liquid off his face, out of his eyes, and trotted towards the door in an effort to warm up a little, rubbing his hands against his arms, crossing them over his body. The ladder, when he got to it, was iron and rusty, leading down into darkness through a small square of earth flanked at the surface by four rectangles of mouldy wood. It was tiny; barely enough for his body to fit through, but this was the only way now. He had avoided death by the skin of his teeth, and he wasn't just going to throw it away by letting himself get killed after a week.

Taking a deep breath, he began to climb: down, down for a few minutes, holding his breath against the rank smell of dirt assaulting his nostrils and squishing his eyes and mouth closed to avoid rocks that he dislodged climbing down falling in.

After what in reality was just over seven minutes but felt like hours, the toes on his right foot touched firm ground. Feeling safe, but somehow not, he planted both feet on the earth at the bottom of the ladder and began to feel his way down the wall on the opposite side of the ladder. It was messy; his hands that had been covered in blood were being coated in a nasty brown sludge that squelched in between his fingers and made him cringe, getting under his nails. He finally got to the bottom and…

"Oh, you are shitting me."

There was nothing. No door, no way of escape. Looking up, he saw a man in sunglasses peering down into the pit at him, smirking nastily, pulling a steel plate that could have easily weighed more than him over the hatch.

"Fuck you, bastards. Sick wankers." England's furious yells went unheard.

A thought occurred to him. Two, in fact:

His first though was that the oxygen in the pit would probably run out soon. The second: No-one said he couldn't dig himself out.

There was no time to waste. He bent as far down as the confined space would let him, and he got out his nails. This made him wish that he hadn't cut them before the meeting.

"_Ow. Ow. Ow._" He started to chant with each stroke at the mud, occasionally hitting rocks; most of them sharp and jagged, slicing gashes into his fingertips, but he dug nonetheless. The hole that he dug was small, but just big enough for him to squeeze through, and when he felt it crumbling underneath his fingers, he was shocked. It caved in, and he was presented with blackness again, prompting him to crawl through and explore.

Stop, England. It's dangerous to go straight out into the middle. Stick to the sides, lad.

His internal voice started to sing out amongst the other thoughts pushing to get to the forefront of his mind. It encouraged him, and he listened to it's advice.

He reached for the sides and flattened himself to it, finding a lever and pulling it, not caring of the consequences anymore: He had learnt to trust his instincts.

"No…it can't be…"

The room was square and tall, reaching far upwards into light, very different from the ladder-room he had just left. The floor was made of white linoleum and so were the walls. It was all a bit cheesy really, but the outstanding feature was the thing in the middle…or, more rather…the bodies in the middle.

England stood, dumbfounded by the sight that met his eyes. He…_he himself_…was there, sprawled across the middle, arms and legs in an odd position, face peaceful, eyes closed gently and mouth open. A bag was laid at his side, crumpled.

Oh, no.

The falling rows of tiles he had "escaped" from just less than quarter of an hour ago? He hadn't really got away. He had fallen, down into this white tomb that had been laid out long ago. This game…it had killed him…and so quickly too. He hadn't lasted five hours. The shock jolted his stomach nastily, sending him reeling back against the wall. Eyes flitting around as he sank down, he spotted three other figures-America: blood covering the ground where he laid, Canada: nasty burn marks covering any bare skin and scorched clothes pasted here and there, Italy: nothing, but deep purple skin and red eyes.

"No…no, no, _no, NO!_"

England shouted out loud, his voice rising slowly to a sickening scream of agony as he collapsed to the ground, shaking and weeping in pain. It couldn't be possible, but it was.

"Wait." He stopped, "If I'm a ghost, how come I was able to scratch through the mud?" It somehow didn't make sense, and there were details missing.

Walking up to "America", he bent down and inspected his face closely. America wore glasses. They weren't there. True, of course, they could have been knocked off when he had been…stabbed…or however he had been killed, but those marks…

Glasses _always _left marks on the space between the eye and the bridge of the nose if you wore them for as long as America had. And those marks weren't there. He had been near enough the powerful nation to notice small details, and he had never noticed them before, but now he thought about it…

It was the same with Canada-no marks. And Italy didn't have his curl.

_There's something very wrong here._

Checking the palms of his "corpse", he found that there were no slashes.

He laughed in relief, savouring his life and pure joy of being not dead and in happiness that his friends were fine, but remained partially wary of the fake bodies in the room. But what caused it?

Swiping at the fake Italy, he found that it disappeared in a puff of smoke that receded quickly; meaning that it was either a projection or someone was messing with his head. He didn't doubt that they'd hesitate to use either.

Bucking his shoulders so the bag jumped up into a more comfortable position, he began to walk to the other end of the room, briefly turning and saying out loud:

"Too easy, mate."

* * *

><p>America laughed long and loud. This entire game was stupid, stupid enough to be downright hilarious. The person stood in front of him couldn't be real, could he?<p>

The room was about thirteen metres wide with four doors; one that he had just come out of; one that "Canada" had emerged from; and two on either side.

"Apparition. Leave. Go now."

"America, I'm not an apparition. I'm Canada."

"You are not. Go now." America swiped his hand at the space in between them, "You heard me, piss off."

Canada sighed, "Will you believe me if I can cite something personal between us?" he earned a long sigh, before a sentence came floating across to him,

"Fine…go on."

"Err…" Canada stumbled, "Fine, didn't I once try to get your attention while in the cellar at your house?"

America shook his head, "Not detailed enough." Below his suspicion, he was beginning to believe.

"You were wearing a black vest, holding a chainsaw and cutting a log."

"What? Yes. I was. I believe you, brother." America smiled, holding himself back from running to greet his sibling. "So, how's it been for you?"

"Shit."

"True, true. I was suspicious of you 'cause this ghost-thing attacked me. It scared the crap 'outta me. Had any puzzles or challenges yourself?"

"Yes, I had to solve this riddle thing. Really, it was a bit easy, but then it just…I thought I was going to die."

America cringed, "These people, they're sick, horrible bastards. We can't let them win." He stopped and looked around, "So, I guess we've got to split up?"

"Maybe. I hope I'll see you again. If I don't, you were great. It was annoying when people got us mixed up, but I still think you're brilliant, you lovable hamburger."

"What?" America laughed, "So I'm a hamburger now, am I?"

They chuckled, keeping this moment, holding it for as long as they could. After what seemed an eternity, they nodded, tears beginning to fall, and edged around towards the opposite doors. Turning, they headed for what could only be described as a gamble with death.

* * *

><p>\(^o^) All done. It was difficult to write this as well. And I have lots of other fanfiction ideas; but I'd struggle to work on several "lots-of-chapter" fics. I might do the odd one-shot. Bet you were surprised when England found the "bodies"?

Anyway, I'm sorry this was so short, I was getting tired DX. So, sorry if it was très nul.

And have a nice day, everyone! -Random cheerfulness.


	11. Chapter 11

Edited:

Hello C: HGNHSN I'm so sorry this is late. And I'm even sorrier to say that updates will slow down massively due to exams and chronic writer's block. But the school year ends in 8 weeks so then I'll be finalllllyyyy free to write :D. But the good thing is that I've gotten all excited about the plot again! Yay!

**Hetalia does not belong to me. It belongs to** **Hidekaz Himaruya.**

Violence, bad mouthed-ness and personified countries. And drunk!Germany this time!

* * *

><p>"West, you can't just lie there forever."<p>

Germany didn't answer. He had been curled up on the couch for days straight now, barely eating or drinking anything, and turning over every now and again to sleep. Ever since Italy had been kidnapped, he had sunk into a crazy mood cycle of incredible euphoria and optimism for days, getting drunk twice a day, and then, just like that, onto the sofa again, crying his heart out and not speaking. Prussia would have killed for just one smile.

"Hey, West…" Prussia sat down beside him, "Have you forgotten about the banquet?"

"Shut up." Germany's words made Prussia's eyes widen in shock, "Shut up, Prussia. You didn't know him."

"I never claimed-"

"_YOU NEVER KNEW HIM! You never knew him. _Stop claiming you did."

"I didn't…"

"Shut it." He stood up, towering over the albino, "I'm going out. And don't expect me back for a very long time." He marched smartly out of the door, leaving a befuddled Prussia sitting next to the mark that Germany had left.

Minutes passed, the hand on the clock slowly moving around to the hour, when it chimed, knocking him out of his tharn state. He stood up, anger flaming behind his eyes, and slammed out of the house.

"West, get back here! Now!" He knew that he wouldn't be heard, but still he screamed at the streets. Then the panic began to gush through his body. It came in waves, each getting stronger than the last, causing him to double up and grimace in nausea. West could be anywhere by now. He could be drinking himself stupid, or even…Prussia gulped…dead.

"Fuck, West…" he set off at a sprint down the ever-darkening streets of the night, briefly glancing down every street he passed in case he was there, heading towards his brother's favourite pub. It was a large place, but friendly from what he had seen and Germany's friends were always there; maybe they wouldn't let him get too drunk? No, he was jumping to conclusions, he thought as his feet pounded on the ground and breath ripped from his throat; he could just be crying his eyes out…alone…kidnapped?

Germany was foolish. Prussia stopped, completely shattered, thinking. Germany had put both of them in danger and they both still probably were. Doubling over again to catch his breath, Prussia groaned. He had to keep going. He didn't want to risk being taken or losing his brother to Berlin's crowds; he might never find him again.

There. Germany's pub, shining scarlet and emerald and sapphire through the ancient stained glass, criss-crossed with lead strips that had bits missing and were tarnished with mould here and there (how that happened, Prussia didn't know). From what his brother had told him, the pub had been built over two hundred years ago, but over the years had kept it's old charm. Of course, there was a television on the north wall, which played football every so often, rugby, cricket or goodness knows what else, but that was just about all that had changed.

Pushing the door open, Prussia braced himself for the usual smell of alcohol and the sound of chatter that usually assaulted him, feeling the heat slap him across the face. He heard the door swing shut behind him and watched the commotion scattered in front of him. People were drinking and yelling noisily, playing darts, the odd tussle on a table.

Prussia found Germany drunk off his rocker towards the back wall trying to play darts. He was surrounded by other men, most of them also drunk and trying to play.

"You idiot!" Prussia marched smartly up, "You could have been killed!"

"Hey, gorgeous." Germany stroked the albino's face, speech slurred, obviously not recognising the German as his brother. Prussia jerked away.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Hav'ng a good time, mate. Fancy a dr'nk?" he held up a full beer-stein.

"No." Prussia took it away and put it on a nearby table, "Come on, we're going home." He grabbed the blond by the arm and began to yank him away.

"Goodbye, goodbye my dear friends. Remember me always!" He burst into loud and raucous laughter as he was dragged through the door. They walked (or at least, Prussia walked, Germany stumbled) through the streets, heading back towards the house. Germany laughed every so often, or trying to talk to Prussia in what he thought would be a light-hearted way. His brother never responded though, continuing to lead his little brother through the lanes. When they got back, Germany was pushed roughly through the door by Prussia and ordered to sit down on the couch, which he obeyed dumbly, listening to the other lock the door and hang up his coat.

He came through to see Germany on his back on the sofa grinning giddily and holding onto his socks like a child.

"Sit up." Germany righted himself, listening. "How…_dare…_you go and do that?" he waited for a response. He got none, so he continued. "You put us both in serious danger. Hell, do you even know what's happening to the other countries? Did you even consider that it might happen to us?"

"Hmmmph." He leaned forwards, "Nuu…" Prussia waited. "Buut…did you even think about me?" he began to cry suddenly and unexpectedly, "Italy was my best friend. Do you even know what it's like to have someone that special taken away from you?"

Prussia was stuck for words. Other than Germany, he doubted anyone had been as close to him as Italy to Germany.

"No, I-I guess not…"

"Then you don't know how I feel. He's one of the very few friends I have, of course I want to go and forget using any means." He looked at his lap guiltily. "I think I need to go to bed now. I feel sick." He stood up, walked off, and Prussia put his head in his hands, defeated.

"He's right. I don't know."

* * *

><p>Sweden looked at the smaller man stood beside him. His face reflected that of a concerned parent, looking determinately across the street with the rucksack perched on his back. The car had been packed mostly for their search, but Hanatamago was still in the house with nowhere to go.<p>

"Wh' l'kes d'gs?"

"I don't know." Finland dug his face into Sweden's chest, "Are you sure this is a good idea, Sve?"

"Hm. Posit've. We r'lly c'n't leave Seal'nd."

"Hm." Finland hugged tighter, "I really miss him."

"Yep. 'Nd th'ts why we're g'ng f'r him."

"Yeah. I think Japan likes dogs. Or at least, he doesn't mind them. We should phone him up, I'm sure he'll take her in."

"'Kay." Sweden walked to the phone, dialling it and passing it to Finland.

"Hello, this is China-aru. Who is it please?"

"Hey, this is Finland, is Japan around?"

"Erm, yes. He's working. I'll just go fetch him." Finland heard the other phone being put down and China calling Japan. Finland looked at Sweden uneasily.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Japan, this is Finland."

"Hi."

"Well...we were wandering...I know this is really rude, but we know you sort of like dogs. I mean, you're okay with them?"

"Yes?"

"Well, would you take Hanatamago in for a while?"

"Why?"

Finland grimaced, "It's just...Sealand's gone-"

"_What?"_

"Sealand's gone and we're looking for him, but we need someone to look after Hana."

"Listen..." Japan's voice was hushed, "I need you to come over right now. This is important. Take Hana with you and some clothes. I'll explain when you get here."

"Okay. I'll see you later." he put down the receiver and looked up at Sweden. "He's okay. We've got to go around to his though."

"Br'lliant."

-o-

Hours later, Finland and Sweden were stood outside Japan's house waiting after having knocked with the little silver ring perched on the white door. Noises were emerging from inside, a little shouting here and there, laughter and screaming. The screaming sounded like it came from Japan. The door opened quickly to reveal the little man with the black hair in a ruffled bob-cut and a loose t-shirt, contrary to what he would usually wear at meetings.

"Ah! You're here! Come in!" he welcomed them in, stepping over the coat-stand that laid across the floor, warning them to be careful of Korea and China who were supposed to be helping him, but instead were attempting to kill each other.

"How dare you-aru?"

China leapt past them and thundered after a cackling Korea who was clutching China's Hello Kitty plushie.

"See?"

"Hm."

"Anyway." Japan opened a door, letting the two Scandinavians in and locking it behind him, "Tell me exactly, and this is important: What happened?"

"Well..." Finland began, "We were at the airport. It was about half seven. Then, Sve got a phone-call." He looked up at his friend, "Do you have it recorded?"

"Yeah."

"Great. I'll show you that afterwards. Anyway, Sweden was really shocked, you recognised it, didn't you? That's it. It was similar to the one we got at the meeting a while ago, wasn't it?" Sweden nodded. "And we got home, and Sealand was...gone." Finland looked faraway before yanking himself back, "We haven't seen him since."

"Finland, I'm sorry." Japan looked up and put a hand on the Finn's shoulder, "But you've given me incredibly important data. I have been researching this whole series of events and I think I'm getting closer to discovering something important." he paused and listened to the two men screeching around his house.

"So, what have you got so far?"

"I'll show you." he stood up and unlocked the door, letting the two other step through it before he did. Reaching Japan's room, Finland and Sweden gasped.

"Japan, what happened to your room?"

"Oh, those two madmen downstairs knocked it off it's hinges and then offered to help me. The tea had salt in..."

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. Anyway...here you are..." he passed them five sheets of numbers and words labeled 'IMPORTANT' at the top in bold. The two Nordics poured over it for a few minutes before raising their eyebrows.

"How'd you find this?"

"Oh...er...internet." He looked down. "I am pretty sure that they're still alive, almost definite. How long they'll _stay _alive though, is debatable."

"Hm." Sweden's grunt was a little more worried than usual.

"Yes. Now, as you can see here, most the 'kidnapees' have been related to England in some way or another. That is, except, Italy. We don't know about him. So, for the moment, we'll focus on the four that are." he took the sheets back, scanning them. "So, we, or more rather, I, think it has something to do with his history. So I looked all over for anything to do with the history of England and his interactions with the other three. Nothing of much interest there. So I'm a bit stuck. I was wandering if your phone could help, Sweden?"

"Yeah." He handed over the little Nokia.

"Thank you." Japan accepted it carefully and turned it around in his hands. "Maybe we can trace the call?" he started to dial.

"What are you-?"

He was cut off by a loud ringing. Japan had obviously phoned them back and put it on loudspeaker.

"Take notes." he mouthed at Finland, which was obeyed. The wait was painful, but suddenly...

"What?" The voice made Japan jump, Finland scribbled.

"Where are our friends?"

"Who are you?"

He said the first thing that came to him. "I'm Canada."

"What?"

"What are you on about?"

"..." There was a click, and the line went dead.

Japan looked at Finland and Sweden.

"Some help that was."

* * *

><p>"I'm tired." It had now been several hours since Italy had found the small not-quite nation and they had been walking for ages, with nothing to sustain them.<p>

"I am too, amico, but we have to keep going! Be a strong nation!"

"Yeah! I will be a strong nation." he picked up his pace, leaving the flailing Italian behind.

"Not that fast! We still need to keep going for who knows how long." Sealand slowed down so Italy could catch up again.

"Come on, slowpoke!"

"Enough!" Italy laughed and prodded the small boy playfully, "I'll show _you _who the slowpoke is!" and he sprinted off.

_Damn._ Sealand had been told of how fast Italy could be when he was running away, so to pick a race with him was absurd. Whatever. He could still try. "In your dreams!" He dashed off after him.

They had been running for a while now, Sealand and Italy overtaking each other every few minutes, before they came to a fork in the path. They looked at each other uncertainly.

"This way."

"This way."

They both spoke at the same time, laughing when they realised and trying to agree on which way to go.

"Stop there, Sealand. We're going your way, right?" he stepped over, "But...shouldn't we work out which way would be best?"

"In what way?"

"Well...this is a maze. A puzzle maze. If we went the wrong way." he stopped, gulping down terrible ideas, "We could die."

"Don't be silly." Sealand took the Italian's hand, "Remember, we won't die. Even if those bracelets do stop you from keeping your powers, we still have each other, right? And I trust you." he held out his hand for the other to shake. It was taken and gripped maybe a little too tightly.

"I trust you."

"Come on then." they both walked off into darkness.

There was silence, before, "It's too dark!"

"No it isn't! There's blue light over there." He pointed. Indeed there was, and Italy had been looking at the floor, "Silly fool!"

"Oopsie!" They jogged forwards, watching it grow bigger, adrenalin creeping up Italy's stomach. He put a hand over his eyes, frightened of what might be there. "Sealand, I don't think-"

"_Too late!_" he laughed, dragging the slender hands away from hazel eyes, "It's fine. And it's fantastic!"

Indeed it was. A high circular room, lit by blue light shimmering off the surface of a pool in the middle. A gilded statue rose majestically out of the centre: a beautiful woman smiling down and gripping a Lilly flower in her right hand, her slender body covered with robes of marble, hanging off her arms like an ancient Greek Goddess. The walls were marble also, reflecting the shimmering blue light, golden pillars rising high to the top and meeting in a big swirl.

Around the pool, there was a round table holding delicious-looking food and drink: the finest wine and pure orange, apple and mango juice. A banquet fit for a king. Several, in fact. Strawberries and freshly-cut peaches were spaced at intervals, leaves scattered here and there. Five chairs were placed around it. The first was bright red, glittering. Pancakes and maple syrup were placed on the plate in front, steaming, presumably fresh from the oven.

The second was yellow, also glittering. A cup of tea and fish and chips were on the plate in front of that.

"Wow. I guess we're all supposed to be meeting up here, right?"

Italy, dumbstruck, didn't respond for a moment, before letting out a choked "Er...we weren't told about this. I suspect a trap!" he turned back.

"But wait, there's pasta here for you."

"What? Really?" he turned and grinned, "I think this might just be okay then. So, what, do you think everyone else should be here?"

"It seems that way."

"Maybe we should wait."

"Maybe." Sealand spotted something on the wall and wandered up to it.

_To those of you able enough to complete day one:_

_Enjoy this reward. Don't fret about the bracelets. That aspect is a part of it._

"How cryptic."

"Not really. I think it means we can come into contact with others with the bracelets within this room, and that is a part of the reward."

"Does this mean from now on as well?"

"I'm not sure. We'll have to see."

* * *

><p>England was confronted by a door. It wasn't a simple door like most of the other had been, it was intricate and swirling, painted a gold that glittered delicately against what little light was available. He didn't hesitate. He could die at any minute. So why put it off?<p>

He pushed it open.

He covered his eyes.

He opened them warily.

"Bloody hell..."

A magnificent room. Huge, decorated...and two people.

"Get away!" he stopped the Italian and the Sealander with a voice he never knew he had. "Don't come...near me."

"England, it's okay." Italy continued to walk. "We're free here."

"Stupid idiot! Piss off!"

"No." the hand reached his arm. England closed his eyes. Nothing happened.

"What?" The bracelet on the Englishman's arm was profusely checked, "I didn't die?"

"No, amico. We're free in here."

"What's Sealand doing here?"

"Ah, I found him."

"Good grief." He rushed up to the boy, "They hurt you?"

"Not much. I'm sorry."

"Where were Sweden and Finland? They weren't there for you?"

"I wasn't allowed to the meeting, so I was left at home...alone...like I usually was. No-one is ever there for me, England. I am alienated for being a micronation. I'm not good enough to spend time in your company, as you often imply." he turned away and went to sit down in the grey seat between the red and yellow one. "See? You have colours because you're countries. I have been left without a colour."

"I'm sorry."

"_Recognise me, BASTARD! _Can't you see what you're doing to me?"

"Er...no."

Shaking his head, the boy stood up and went to sit against the wall at the far end of the room. Italy just looked at the blond, shook his head with a sad grimace, and walked off the comfort the shivering boy. He wrapped his arms around him and held him close. Like brothers.

_Maybe I don't deserve a brother like him? No, he doesn't deserve the status._

England looked at the pair and took off his t-shirt, beginning to attempt to wash it without soap.

_I can't put him in that much danger._

* * *

><p>Awwww...poor Sealand T_T. And Germany getting drunk to put himself out of his misery D':. And I can't say anything else :3 I'll probably accidentally reveal some massive spoiler or something. It's all a secret, so there!<p>

Sealander...is that a word? :D Longest chapter yet ^_^.


	12. Chapter 12

Er...I can explain! Actually...no. I can't. Sorry. Anyway, pardon for the wait. Exams are real buggers for writer's block.

I'm changing bits of the previous chapter. I have edited the plan. I didn't like the way it was turning out, and it was making it difficult to write. Please, please don't kill me...I feel guilty now D8

I should really make an update plan...

**Hetalia does not belong to me. It belongs to** **Hidekaz Himaruya.**

Violence, bad mouthed-ness and personified countries.

* * *

><p>Sweden and Finland had been at Japan's house for a day, and no other major breakthroughs had been heralded; no discoveries; no statistics. The fact that they couldn't be revealed as nations just made matters much, much worse. It was early in the morning, and Finland had just woken up.<p>

'What a nice day.' He thought wearily to himself before dragging his tired body out of bed. Wait.

He'd forgotten that he was here and Sealand was missing. He hadn't forgotten that he was still with Sweden.

Sighing in relief, he looked sideways at the sleeping blond and smiled contentedly. Everything would have been perfect, but it wasn't, so he wiped the smile off his face and regained his true, tired posture.

Now he thought about it, he was finding it difficult to go on with the day. His sleep had been so sweet and unknowing, devoid of horrible circumstances, lacking reality. He had had enough.

He yanked on his clothes, grimacing at the twice-worn garments in disgust and making a mental note to ask Japan for his washing-machine's services. He then wandered over to Sweden's bed, still dressed, and laid next to him, burying his face in the Swede's neck. A low grunt was emitted, before he rolled over groggily, his expression softening a little when he saw the Finn next to him.

"H'llo."

"Hi Sweden. Nice sleep?"

"Hm." He relaxed a little, accepting and returning Finland's early-morning affection slowly, albeit a little stiffly and almost with a hint of unwillingness. His gaze shifted upwards towards the Finns eyes, and his expression switched from being mildly disgruntled, to confused.

"F'nl'nd. 're y'u 'kay?"

"Yes, why?"

"B'cause we've n'ver r'lly bin this cl'se b'fore."

"Yes, but I feel like I've known you forever now." He squeezed around Sweden's waist a bit tighter, whispering, "You're really sweet, you know?"

"Hm." There was silence for a few minutes, the two watching the red numbers on the clock next to them turn around to 7:00. It beeped a few times, making the pair jump a bit, and laugh. They both found each other quite cute.

"B'tt'r g't up now." The change of weight, or rather, the sudden lack of it, made the mattress creek and groan, sending little ripples out, jiggling the petit Finn about. Said man looked away briefly while Sweden changed back into his day clothes, minus official coat, and tapped him on the shoulder.

"You know, I think it's really nice that we can trust each other like this. Maybe it's the situation, but it's really brought us together. I makes me feel a bit sad that we had to sacrifice others for it to actually happen like this…" he trailed off, "But I think we should go and have something to eat."

"I 'gree."

They headed downstairs, still yawning tiredly, almost walking straight past Japan's room. But they didn't, and they noticed the light.

"Oh, Japan." Finland caught himself and walked back into the room, "I thought you were getting some sleep..."

"I was!" Japan said hastily, "But those madmen wouldn't shut up. But I have more important news." He clicked on a tab on his computer, bringing up what looked like the archives of a news website. "It turns out that something like this _has _happened before. Only not in the same circumstances." He swivelled around, catching the two nordics' vision full on.

"What does this mean?"

"It means we're on a roll. It means there's a chance we could get Sealand and England and America and all the others back soon."

The pair's eyes widened, "You're not kidding? Japan! This is fantastic news! But...what about that stuff yesterday?"

"That stuff, or those pieces of stuff, are unimportant numbers and theories compared to this. And also, yes it is fantastic, but I would like something to eat right now."

"Can we talk about it over breakfast?" Finland pushed.

"Fine." He stood up, quickly followed by the two Nordics and began to make his way downstairs.

The three retrieved a somewhat filling breakfast of leftovers from the night before, of pizza. Japan had been too busy to cook, so China and Korea had fought over what was to be had until a certain rogue Italy had given them free food, sent by Germany, who couldn't take the noise any more. The two Asian nations had returned to Japan and plonked a few slices on his desk, which had been left.

Speaking of China and Korea, they were sleeping, tired from their kerfuffle the night before. Probably ruined the house as well.

"Japan, you're incredible!" Finland broke through Japan's thoughts.

"You've said that a few times before now."

"Yes, I have. But where did you find it?"

"Well…I was basically browsing the archives of one of America's newspapers from North Carolina and I found something from a few months back-Specifically The 13th of December last year."

"And-?" Finland pressed. Sweden sat there, coffee in hand, a penetrating gaze directed at him.

"Well…a small group of people went missing from the East part of North Carolina over the course of a week. They haven't turned up again." Japan looked down at his knees, "That's the bit that I'm worrying about."

"What do you mean? What does it signify?" The Finn almost leaped out of his chair in excitement, scaring Hanatamago.

"Well, I think that these are the same circumstances. Maybe these kidnappers thought it'd be best to experiment their kidnapping tactics on people that would…" He paused and gulped, "As much as I hate to say it, people of a lower profile, if you understand what I'm saying."

"Hm. So it wouldn't attract too much media attention?" The two Nordics gave each other dark glances, disgust plain in each other's eyes.

"I'm not entirely sure…From what I've heard before, kidnappings are pretty high profile crimes." Came the reply with a nod.

"But why weren't the police involved at all? Or the media?"

"I know. That's an extremely valid point. Admittedly, we don't know for sure whether or not the police were intervening from the article. And also, I've searched other news websites from various points around the world. It's only that certain newspaper. Plus, it's a fairly small company that a group around the east coast of North Carolina buy, so it's very localised."

"They have a website if they're such a small company?"

"Yes. You can tell how small the company actually is from the layout." Japan shuddered, "My eyes still hurt. But that's beside the point." He looked at the other two for a moment, and then back down to watch Hanatamago. "So, it was only reported from there. I draw the conclusion that they're all being taken to somewhere just off the east coast of North Carolina." He sat back and sighed.

"Th't's a l'ng w'y." Sweden mused out loud. Finland jumped a bit, having not heard his voice in a while.

"_Jep_, he's right. It would have taken ages for them all to be taken from New York to North Carolina. And people are constantly disappearing...From this, I draw that there are people working over there, working in countries around the world, presumably in the capitals or moving around."

Japan's eyes widened, "Finland, you're catching on quickly! And I agree. That seems to be the most feasible theory at the moment. I propose we work from there."

"So what are we going to do about it?"

"We're going to start by using our dear friend Google Maps' services."

* * *

><p>"Liet!" Poland called from the couch, "Like, come over here!"<p>

"What?" Lithuania lifted his head. He rolled his eyes in the dark, but then heaved his body up and shuffled over to join the Pole curled up on the pink sofa. "What's up?"

"I just want to be with you, Liet! Like, can't a poor Poland have his best friend by his side?"

"You're scared, aren't you?"

"Like totally not!" Poland almost yelled, but shushed himself when Latvia turned over and grumbled something that sounded like "Akyluhaj..."

Lithuania and Poland looked at each other and shrugged. Maybe the stress really was getting to Latvia?

"What time is it?"

Poland looked briefly at his watch, then looked up and muttered "1:45 in the morning."

"Ah. Why did you wake me up, then?"

"Because I'm, like, cold!" Poland pouted cutely.

Lithuania sighed and walked over to the sofa where he had been sleeping and took the blanket. Dragging his feet wearily, he walked back and placed it on the Pole. "Happy?" He asked.

"No! It's still cold!"

"What do you want me to do, then? Do you want a mug of coffee?"

"No. Go and get some more blankets!"

"Urgh, it's too early for this." Lithuania sighed for a moment. But still, he obeyed and trundled out of the room.

The hall was deathly quiet. The snowstorm rattled on outside, wind howling through the slightly beaten house, floorboards stifling screams. Estonia's house was definitely a little haunting in the dead of night. The staircase creaked as Lithuania walked upstairs, banister vanishing into the dull, unforgiving blackness at the top.

A vague thought floated past the Baltic's mind that maybe it would be better to turn the light on, but he ignored it, still too sleepy to care about much. There wasn't anything dangerous in his friend's house, there couldn't be.

He reached the top of the stairs and looked around, reaching for the nearest little information that might give him sketchy details of his whereabouts. He followed it left, into Estonia's room and glanced around. Then a light appeared.

Lithuania jumped.

He waited for his heart to calm down.

He walked towards the light and picked it up.

It was Estonia's mobile. Old, battered, worn. But there was no ringtone.

'Well, seeing as it's was the middle of the night, Estonia wouldn't want to answer his phone.' Lithuania thought. He pressed answer.

Static.

"What a waste of time." He said to himself grudgingly, pressing the 'End call' button. Then he walked to the oak ottoman that he knew kept the blankets.

"_Liet!_"

He didn't waste time questioning the scream, but ran, stumbled, tripped and fell back down the stairs and back to Poland and the other two Baltics.

"Poland, what's wro-"

"Lithuania!" Poland peeked his head out, tears spilling from his eyes. In front of him was a man dressed in black, a velvet cape draped over his shoulders, clothed in a suit, unruffled and wearing an onyx mask that wouldn't have been uncommon during a 1700's trip to the theatre, sequins dotting it along the edges and around the eyes. His black lips were curved into a sick smile, teeth glinting.

Hearing Poland's cries for the Baltic caused the man to turn and sneer. The glint of a gun shone when he turned around to look.

"Don't even think about it, darlin'." He said, feeling Poland shuffle uncomfortably, "Safety's off. I can shoot you if I feel like it. And I can feel your every movement."

"Like I'm even that stupid." Was the muttered reply.

"Hm." The stranger replied, "Anyway, _Lithuania-_" He pronounced the Baltic's name as if it was something dirty, "How lucky I am! I come in, thinking I'd have one of you, and then...lo and behold...there's another two! And then you came along, lucky me! Ahoo."

Lithuania stayed silent, but caught a glimpse of Estonia and Latvia quivering on the other sofa.

"Don't worry, my friend. They seem willing to comply." He smirked again. "And I assume you will be, too? Hm?"

Lithuania licked his lips nervously. "What were you doing to Poland?"

The intruder shrugged one shoulder and wrinkled his nose. "Oh, nothing. I was still wandering whether I should kill him here and now, let him continue to play, or drag him off along with dear Estonia and Latvia. But my oh my..." He gasped, "Looks like I'll have to call my comrades and ask for assistance." He clapped his free hand to his cheek, the barrel of the gun shuddering horribly. "My point, your dear Poland's life could rest on your actions."

"I'll go along." Lithuania nodded his head and walked to Estonia and Latvia, sitting down beside them.

"That's very good. I admire you." He said sarcastically, before turning to Poland and jamming his face up against the green eyes.

Meanwhile, Lithuania noticed that Estonia's phone was still in his hand, and he hadn't dropped it back onto the bed. He nudged Estonia, and the blond turned to look at him.

'Text Russia' was marked in a text message with no named recipient.

Estonia raised his eyebrows, but silently took the phone and scrolled through the contacts, trying his best to hide it behind Lithuania's back and only taking a look once every few seconds. Then he hit the buttons with his right hand and clicked 'Send'.

_Help us. In danger. Don't reply._

He nodded at the brunet and shoved it down the back of the cushions, still extremely worried, but a small part of his mind had been reassured. They might have a chance of getting out.

* * *

><p>"Right, I've had enough." England said, standing up quickly. "We've waited too long."<p>

Italy raised his hand to speak, but was dismissed almost instantly by a swift shake of England's head. Sealand continued to stare at the wall.

"I say that we either decide that America and Canada and…Lord knows who else," He raised his eyebrows, "Are dead." He shuddered, but regained his composure, "Other options include that they're not supposed to be here; this is a hallucination; we stumbled upon a room that we're not supposed to be in; they're not arriving for hours or even days; this could be a time-wasting activity; or finally, they'll appear within the next few minutes." He took a deep breath.

"Would you like to write that down, British jerk of jerks?" Sealand said grudgingly, "I don't think your voice was interesting enough for me to hear."

England didn't react to Sealand's statement, but merely continued with his speech. "I personally vote that this is either a time-wasting activity, or America and Canada won't appear for hours. In which case, they would be similar. I'm still wandering about what this bag is for." He held it up, yanked the drawstrings open and emptied the contents onto the floor. Bits of survival kit: food, bottled water, blankets.

"Italy, have you got one of these?"

"No." Was the reply.

"Then why are we here, or the other question is, why do I specifically have this?"

Sealand stood up as well. "Stop asking so many questions!" He screeched, "This is difficult enough to get through without having to deal with endless queries, and from you, no less!"

"I'm just trying to make sense of it all!" England said in protest, "I'm just so confused. I'm angry, upset, confused, hungry and trapped. Of course I'm going to ask questions. I didn't even know anyone, barring our bosses and each other, who know about our status as nations!"

"England, lower your voice." Pleaded Italy, "I'm feeling all the emotions you mentioned, plus more, with an additional barrage every few minutes. And I don't think anyone, inside this maze or not, that isn't asking questions. Have you even begun to consider my brother? Germany, Japan, China…anyone who values their peers? It must be terrible for them, as well as us! They don't know who's going to be kidnapped next, and living with that sort of fear must be terrible."

England stopped his rant, taking in everything Italy had just said. It was true, he couldn't deny, but he felt that their group was in a far worse position. After all, they could easily die very, very soon.

He walked up to the table. "We don't even know if this food is safe to eat. Maybe this is another challenge?"

"Stop with the questions!"

"But then," England began to mutter more to himself, "What about Italy and Sealand? Wouldn't they have food or anything?"

"Then," Said Italy, approaching England, "What do you propose we do? Have any 'master plans'? What makes you think you can figure it out all by yourself?"

"I can tell the stress is getting to you Italy. You've changed so much."

"So have you!" Protested the little brunet, "And you're far too controlling. You always have been."

This was new. Italy having a go at England?

_I thought he was scared of me._

England grimaced for a moment, but then furrowed his eyebrows. "Fine. You look after yourselves. I'm getting out of this hell-hole, whether you like it or not."

He walked to where the bag's contents had fallen, scooped them back in, yanked it shut and took one last look around.

"I'm not sure if I'll see you again." Was the last thing he said, before marching smartly to the door and banging it shut behind him. His footsteps echoed away, and Italy and Sealand were left in silence.

* * *

><p>America took one last look at his brother before stepping through the door, bag still slung over his shoulder. The room that greeted him was long, almost like a hallway, long and made of what looked like sandstone blocks. There was a crimson carpet on the floor, running the length of the room, up to a set of five stairs that led to a wall and a nine by nine grid.<p>

It could have been for a Chinese emperor, the way it was decorated. Golden lions glittered along the length of the carpet, and behind those, streams that disappeared into the walls at both ends. Koi were painted on the walls, submerged under the glittering liquid, reflecting red light from lamps flickering on the walls.

He approached the grid with a little confidence. A sudoku? He smirked. He had done these before, they were easy. Plus, he could take his time with it.

He sauntered up the stairs and surveyed the puzzle. Yep. Should be okay. He spied a basket of tiles to the left and headed there.

He never noticed the raised tile in front of it.

It sank under his weight and a timer was revealed above the grid, giving him ten minutes.

"Aw, crap."

From what he had seen already, timers were dangerous here. They usually meant either death or some kind of dangerous explosion, so he set to work. Grabbing a 1 tile, he stepped backwards and decided where he would put it.

Muttering, he ran back and forth. "That's right...2 here, another 1...5...8...a 9. That's not right." America swiped the last few tiles from their sockets and frowned.

_But that can't be right..._

He screamed in frustration and took more tiles. He felt that this sudoku puzzle could be impossible to complete...there were no spaces for the sixes or the nines. And there were too many threes and not enough eights.

"_What do you want from me?_" He yelled at the puzzle, "You don't make sense!"

The timer read 4:38.

Panicking, America sprinted back to the room where he and Canada had been before, breathing hard and praying that it would still be there.

He flung the door open.

But the floor had gone, leaving a huge, inky chasm underneath.

"Fuck!" The word echoed meaninglessly into nothingness. America glanced back and saw the timer again, now reading 2:50.

He was going to die here.

* * *

><p>Oh noes! Poor America! Hope you enjoyed it ^_^.<p> 


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